Here's my original report on the OM-D, with some additions, from the original thread that nosedived out of control. I realize some readers of this thread may have not seen that one so I'm reprinting it:
Last Friday Doug's Fish Fry in Skaneateles with the OM-D and three prime lenses: 14/2.5, 20/1.7 and 45/1.8.
I was a bit worried that I only had one battery and no back up digital, so I brought my M3 along with some 400 speed film. I did shoot the film (2 rolls) but shot about 400 images* with the OM-D and the battery never died. I was pleased! I read today that someone took over 800 at a sporting event on one battery charge. I am assuming that, like me, that photog was using the EVF and not the LCD and that this contributes to the greater battery life.
[*This is the fact that caused the previous thread to spiral out of control for a bit. Find that thread if you want to debate whether that was grossly out of control or reasonable. Otherwise, this is about the OM-D and the photographs, not how many I take to get the good ones.]
Autofocus worked very well. There were a few shots I missed because it was a bit slower than the action, I noticed this more with the 20 than the other two lenses. Most every camera I have tried in similar situations will also miss a shot, even the D700 which was the best of the bunch AF wise. So the OM-D's AF, in a somewhat dimly-lit restaurant, was very, very good. I never used MF.
The OM-D got out of my way. The only things I changed was the ISO value (assigned to the video button) when I wanted to make sure it stayed low for longer exposures (to blur the action) or when I needed to keep it high for whatever reason, other than that I left it on auto up to 3200 and my sense was that it rarely used 3200. Looking over the images, the WB performance was good. It got fooled in some of the mixed lighting in the prep area, which really any camera would with a mix of incandescent and two different temps of flourescents. Otherwise it did very well. I shot on aperture priority as usual and the front dial worked very well...I don't think I ever touched the rear dial, set to EV comp.
You can get bokehlicious photos with the 45, 20, and even with the 14 if you really foreground your main subject. I don't mind this limitation of the format as it forces me to "get closer" a bit.
I shot Natural JPEG and as I expected from my long experience with Olympus, exposure, WB and color are very good...I didn't have a ton of work to do in post.
The EVF was great. I have a Sony a57 at work and I think the OM-D's evf is nicer. It doesn't do the color tearing thing that the Sony type does. I have mind set to emulate cameras with optical finders, with the info strip on the bottom. This makes the image area a bit smaller, which is okay since I have pretty thick eyeglass frames, and I prefer to see an image without having info overlaid on top of it. The Oly EVF is fluid and sharp and just a joy to use. Surprisingly I didn't miss the X100's OVF at all.
For the first time in my life I used the aperture preview feature assigned to the function 1 button...it really helped with closeups where i wanted a little more control over the depth of field. The EVF makes it really easy to see the preview.
The EM-5 is small, but having done a short tour of duty with a Sony Nex 5n, it's an ergonomic masterpiece! I haven't tried the battery grip, though I suspect I would like it. It's not world's smaller than a Leica M3 and honestly I find it more comfortable to hold than the Leica. No, it isn't as pretty, but the angle of the front grip, the rubber nipple thing on the back, make it easier to hold.
