I have been using micro-four thirds camera for more than three years, first with the Panasonic GF1 and then with the GX1. The E-M5 is my first Olympus and it has been with me for only a couple of weeks.
The world doesn’t really need another E-M5 review; but I am going to write one anyway, with comparisons with my GX1 along the way. Is the E-M5 that much better than the GX1, and if so, how?
Read on to find out.
Body and grip
The E-M5 is like a movie star, much smaller in person than you expected. You imagine from the shape that it must be DSLR size, but it isn’t.
In fact it is very similar in size to its spiritual ancestor, the OM-1.
And similar to the dinky little GX1, especially if the GX1 has a viewfinder attached.
Its slightly fatter than the GX1, thanks mainly to the fold-out rear screen; but overall it is of a similar volume.
In spite of the similar size, the E-M5 does not sit as easily in the hand as the GX-1. Maybe it is the slightly heavier weight of the EM-5, maybe it is the slightly larger protruding grip at the front of the GX1; whatever the cause, the E-M5 felt less secure being held in my right hand. Of course, with all these smaller cameras you can reinforce your grip by using the left hand to cradle the lens; but I craved a little more security.
Personal preference, hand size and budget will dictate whether you are comfortable with the EM-5 as supplied, and no doubt many people are; but for those who want a little more to hold onto, Olympus will happily sell you a kit of bits.
Being Olympus, the same company who rips you off for a lens hood as an extra for that very expensive lens you just bought, the pricing for the grip is ridiculous. But if you have to have it, on the left is a grip extension and on the right is an additional battery holder.
The grip is of metal construction and fits neatly against the body. It increases size and weight a little, but not so you notice.
What you do notice is the much improved grip, and the fact that you have suddenly moved from one shutter button…
…to two:
Sadly there is nothing you can do in terms of programming the shutter buttons and attendant dial separately, they both work the same way; but you can amuse yourself in the pub by inventing spurious functions for the additional button; not that you will be able to afford to go to the pub once you have paid for the camera and grip.
The battery pack is plastic and can only be installed onto the additional grip. The result is quite a sizeable camera:
To me, the battery pack is an addition too far and I don’t think I will ever use it. But up until recently you had to buy the two together. Olympus Thailand now have a “grip only” option, and if you include the battery pack they now throw in an additional battery, for a price similar to buying the battery on its own; so it was an easy decision. If you do attach the battery pack you gain two additional function buttons and a portrait mode shutter button and dial so you can swagger along like a professional (or a wanker, depending on how others view you).
Small style suggestion: The grip blends in nicely with the black E-M5, not so well with the silver version of the camera. Of course, you are a serious photographer and these things don’t matter to you; but if you are shallow like me, check out the black grip on a silver body before committing.
External controls.
On the top you get the usual PASM ring, the shutter button and two control dial. The dials are not marked because you can set them to a variety of configurations, and you can have a different configuration for P-A-S-M if you find that useful or just enjoy confusing yourself. In Aperture mode, which is my usual shooting mode, I set the front dial to changing the aperture and the rear sets exposure compensation.
I had concerns over the two dial approach. On the GX1 there is a single wheel which you rotate to change settings, and then you press it to switch between aperture and exposure compensation. Surely this was more convenient? Surprisingly, no. The two dial approach is much quicker once you get used to it, and also proves effective when choosing items from the Super Control Panel or when reviewing images.
Also on the top there is a function button and a button to for movie recording. Both can be re-programmed as required.
On the back of the camera there is another re-programmable function button, a replay button and the usual directional pad with an OK in the middle. Info, delete and Menu buttons, plus a power switch complete the set. Oh, and there is the rear OLED screen.
(If you want to know what can be programmed against each button, this is a useful chart).
The OLED screen is sharp and clear and useable in all but bright sunlight. It folds out so you can shoot looking down into the screen, or looking up at the screen for those “over the heads of the crowd” shots.
My GX1 viewfinder folds up ninety degrees, so I can look down into it rather have my face pointing at my subjects; ideal for more discrete street shots. The fold-out screen on the E-M5 serves the same purpose without me having to stick my face next to the camera, and it aids comfort when working with a tripod:
In addition, it enables you to get shots from a low perspective without having to lie down and dirty your designer clothes or, in this case, being run over:
The built-in viewfinder is bright and clear. There is a proximity sensor which will change the view from the rear screen to the viewfinder as you put your eye up to it. Unfortunately, it can also be triggered if you put the folded out screen against your ample stomach, or try and touch the rear screen at an angle that blocks the sensor; so there are occasions when you need to turn off the proximity sensor and swap between the two views by pressing a button.
Above the viewfinder there is a plastic cover which you can pull off to reveal the data port. Above that the is another cover to remove which reveals the hotshoe.
Having done that you can then attach the supplied flash (or other accessories such as the macro lights shown in a previous photo):
It’s not much of a flash, and it’s not a very elegant solution. If you head out on with the mini flash in its mini bag, you are going to have assorted bits and pieces to deal with if you decide to use it.
Good luck not losing any of them…
Setting the settings
There are two routes to setting up the camera. The first is accessed by pressing the Menu button, an action you will not be surprised to learn takes you to a menu:
You will spend a lot of time investigating this menu when you are first trying to understand and set up your new toy; but once you have your brain aligned to all the options, it is reasonably straight forward. But there are a load of choices to get your head around, nothing like the relative simplicity of the GX1. This, of course, is ultimately a good thing; you can set up the camera to do precisely what you require.
The second setup route uses a display that duplicates some of the menu options, but makes them more accessible because you are more likely to be changing them while shooting. This is brought up by pressing the OK button and goes by the grand title of the Super Control Panel (SCP):
There is yet another set-up menu, known as Live Control which is more simplistic than the SCP. Unless you turn it off, pressing OK will cycle you through both these menus. Personally I turned Live Control off, so pressing OK always brings up the SCP.
Once the SCP is displayed, you can select any option by touching the screen, or you can cycle through the options with one of the wheels. The other wheel will cycle through the values for that option, or you can press OK to see the values listed at the bottom of the screen. So there are plenty of ways to interface with the SCP and you will choose which works for you, and of course your choices will be more limited if you happen to be staring through the viewfinder at the time.
The SCP is another area where I thought the E-M5 would fall short of the GX1, which has a user definable quick menu which can be completely operated by touch. But the SCP has more options displayed at one time and I find it just as quick to work with now I am comfortable with the controls.
Compositional aids One of the huge pluses of a mirrorless camera compared to a DSLR is that you see pretty much what your shot will look like if taken with your current settings. On the GX1, the idea of augmenting the display with a histogram on top of the image seemed like a good idea. In practice it took up too much screen space, and it was not that good at highlighting when I had potential blown highlight or shadows. The E-M5 has the histogram option, but it also has something much, much better; colour shading of areas of the image where you will potentially blow highlights or shadows.
On the screen above (ignore the lines on the display, that is just from photographing a screen that is being refreshed), I have dialled in +0.7 exposure compensation. The camera is telling me that, if I take the shot at these settings, the area coloured orange will have blown highlights. Similarly, if I set exposure compensation to -2.0, the blue area will indicate blown shadows:
Of course, if I stop dicking around and just use the calculated exposure, then there will be nothing blown:
In the menus you can set the points at which both highlight and shadows will start to be indicated as blown. I need to do some research on the most appropriate settings, but it’s good to have that flexibility.
It’s a fantastic feature, although it is worth mentioning that I am seeing far fewer blown areas than the GX1 produced. The E-M5 has a very impressive dynamic range.
As an aside, here’s a question for you: how many Canon cameras have been made with a better dynamic range than the E-M5? The answer is none. Even the latest 5D3 and 1DX, the E-M5 beats them all for dynamic range. Don’t forget to mention that the next time you see a Canon user struggling up a hill with all his gear; he will thank you for it.
Another screen you can display shows horizontal and vertical level gauges:
Unfortunately, you can’t show the peaking and the level gauges together, you have to cycle between the views by pressing Info. In total there are four optional view, plus a default. I have just turned on peaking and level gauges, so I have three possible screens which I can cycle through with the Info button.
Those same four options are available in the viewfinder view, and you can turn on/off a different selection to those shown on the rear screen, (provided you define display modes 1 or 2 in the viewfinder; setting this thing up can be complicated!).
Focus
The E-M5 screen is divided into 35 squares, each one of which can be a focus box. You can turn them all on, or a block of nine, or just one. I always use just a single focus point which I can move around the screen with the directional buttons, or by means of the control wheels. As has been well-documented in other reviews, focus with static objects is fast and accurate even in low light, especially if you are using one of the more recent M43 lenses.
On of the focusing options you can set on the SCP is to use static focus (S-AF) in conjunction with manual focus (S-AF+M). Turn on this option and half press the shutter button to auto-focus. Now touch the focus ring on your lens and the camera will zoom in (to a level of zoom you can change with a dial) and you can then precisely fine tune your focus manually. It’s an elegant way to work.
Continuous focus (C-AF), which attempts to lock focus onto a moving object under you focus box while you half press the shutter is nothing like as effective as a DSLR. But there are some set-up tricks to help with this (to be detailed in another post) and you can get results. This radio controlled jet was travelling at considerable speed and I caught several in-focus shots.
Alternatively, you can use Continuous Focus with Tracking (C-AF+TR) which attempts to follow the chosen subject across the screen, wherever it may go. Accumulated wisdom from the web is: don’t even bother.
Finally, of course, you can abandon all this auto-focus nonsense and just choose manual focusing, you traditionalist!
Zoom Focus So far, it all sound wonderful. You have your viewfinder and rear screen set to show peaking, you have a single focus point defined and you are using the S-AF+M focus setting so you can acquire auto-focus and then zoom in to fine tune manually should you feel the need. It’s a great way of working.
And then it’s not.
Just like with the GX1, you can tap anywhere on the rear screen to pick a focus point. The resulting focus box is slightly smaller, but then suddenly the peaking option has disappeared and nothing happens when you touch the focus ring to use manual focusing. The camera is broken.
What has happened is that, by touching the screen, the camera has gone into “zoom frame” mode. You can also initiate this by assigning a function button to “zoom” which will also start zoom frame mode. So, pressing the zoom button, or touching the screen puts you into zoom frame mode. Pressing the zoom button again zooms into the focus box and now you can use manual focus. Press zoom again, or the shutter button, to return to the full screen view; but you are still stuck in zoom frame mode. Press OK to exit zoom mode, and if your normal focus box was on the other side of the screen, your focus point will revert to there. Make sense? Of course not.
Normal focus box:
Zoom focus boz:
It’s bloody stupid and massively complex compared to the GX1 which allowed you to choose a focus point anywhere, change it to different sizes, and allow you to zoom into that size in a consistent manner. The E-M5 has too separate focus techniques which you work with in different ways; and the zoom focus technique is a complete mess.
I understand that the new EPL-5 has resolved this issue and it surely would not take much for Olympus to fix this nonsense with firmware; but maybe they won’t bother. To me, it’s the only weak point in an otherwise magnificent camera.
Of course, you learn to work round it. With the GX1 I was selecting focus points on the rear screen all the time. With the E-M5 I discipline myself to use the standard boxes and move them around, and only use zoom mode when I am shooting macro or really need to zoom in close for a very precise focus on a small point. Even so, fixing this stupidity would make me very happy.
Exposure
The standard exposure setting seems to to work well for most images; plus of course I can play with exposure compensation while watching out for highlighted blown areas. But I do use spot exposure on a regular basis and have one of my function buttons on the GX1 set so I can go and change my exposure method to spot. I was rather concerned that exposure type could not be defined to a button on the E-M5. Was I going to have to go to the SCP every time I wanted to change to spot exposure?
The answer was no and the solution is extremely elegant. I have defined a function button to exposure lock. Then, in the menu, you can define exposure lock so it applies a different exposure process to that which the camera is using. So I have the camera set to standard exposure, and the function button set to lock exposure using spot exposure metering; genius.
Stabilisation
Much was made of the 5 axis stabilisation when the E-M5 was announced and, for me, the stabilisation feature was a key excuse reason for buying the camera. I may be fourteen intellectually, but I am considerably more than that physically, and I welcome any help I can get in keeping things steady. Plus, I often shoot in low light, so a camera with improved high ISO and lower shutter speed capabilities due to stabilisation is a big double win for me.
The stabilisation works beautifully. Here’s a sample shot, 1/13th second with a 75mm lens; no way could my hands manage this without some help:
Image review I don’t spend much time looking at images on the screen, I wait till I get home and can play with them on my computer; but if you do need to review what you have shot, the E-M5 makes it easy. You can swipe the screen to navigate through images, or you can use one of the dials to do so. You can zoom into an image with the other dial, and then move to the next image using the same level of magnification. If you have taken multiple similar images and what to compare their zoomed-in views, this is very useful and something you can’t do on the GX1.
Image Quality Shooting RAW, images are spectacular, and noticeably better than the GX1. Olympus colours are wonderful, with reds in particular looking more natural than Panasonic. This image, while nothing special as a photograph, shows off the Olympus reds:
Here’s a 100% crop, very clean files at base ISO:
Not had much need to stretch the ISO as yet, but some early playing with the camera in my kitchen resulted in the inevitable cat shot. It’s poorly composed, but the colours in the seat are accurate, and the ISO is 6400. It has had noise reduction in Lightroom, but does confirm that high ISO shots are perfectly useable.
Other than playing briefly with the Art Filters…
… I have not tried JPEG; but as Olympus have always had an industry-leading JPEG engine, you are unlikely to be disappointed.
Comparing the E-M5 to the GX1 I have had my GX1 for a couple of years and it has served me well, providing me with thousands of excellent photos. It’s lighter and slightly smaller than the E-M5, and nowadays can be had for about 1/3 of the price of the Olympus.
For its current price, the GX1 is an amazing bargain; but, not surprisingly, the E-M5 is a better camera in every way. There is nothing on the GX1 that I miss when using the E-M5, apart from the fluid focusing controls that are currently screwed on the E-M5
Conclusion Those of us who have been shooting with M43 cameras for a while have always known how good they are, and we know how little you lose and how much you gain when you give up your DSLR for something smaller. But it has taken the E-M5 for the rest of the world to finally take notice and recognise the worth of these mirrorless cameras. Now I have an E-M5 in my hands, I understand why.
The E-M5 has all the trappings of a serious, “professional” (whatever that means) camera. It’s sturdily built and weatherproof. It’s got a built-in EVF and enough configuration options and physical controls to satisfy the most demanding photographer. Before the E-M5 came along, you could put an M43 camera in the hands of a DSLR user and they could point out what was missing compared to their big machine. But give them an E-M5 and they will find it can do everything their DSLR can do, and more, but in a small and undeniably attractive package.
All this would be of little benefit without image quality; but the Sony sensor in the E-M5 brings image quality firmly into DSLR territory. Complete the package with an ever-expanding selection of quality lenses, and you can understand why the E-M5 has finally brought M43 into the mainstream.
Thank you Olympus, this is the best camera I have ever owned; but please fix the zoom screen mode.