Olympus PEN E-P5 full Review

Like:
Fantastic screen; Lots of art filters; Built-in
Wi-Fi; 1/8000 sec shutter speed;
Dislike:
No built-in viewfinder; Limited remote
shooting; Kit lens a little disappointing;

Introduction

As one of the early innovators in the compact
system camera market, Olympus has enjoyed
great success with its PEN range of Micro Four
Thirds cameras. The retro designs of the PEN
series have always appealed to those
photographers hankering after the golden age of
photography. The Olympus PEN E-P5 is no
different - and now we have some initial sample
images from a pre-production sample camera to
show you.
The original digital PEN camera, launched all the
way back in 2008, was a bit of a game-changer.
In terms of camera technology, five years is a
long time, so expectations for the fourth
generation of the top-of-the-line series are high.
Olympus says it has
pretty much gone back
to the drawing board
for this latest PEN
incarnation, but there's
no denying that it takes
its lead from both the
Olympus PEN cameras
of old, and the fantastic
Olympus OM-D , which
made its debut at the
beginning of 2012.
Inside the Olympus PEN E-P5 is the same 16
million pixel sensor and TruePic VI image sensor
as in the Olympus OM-D, which should mean it
is capable of the same impressive image quality.
The design is very much inspired by the original
film PEN, and particularly the black and silver
incarnation. It's enough to make anyone looking
at the front of the camera do a double take.
Of course, the technology inside the camera far
surpasses that of its film forebears, and is also a
significant jump from the previous Olympus PEN
E-P3 camera. There's also enough here to make
it, in some respects, a step up from the Olympus
OM-D itself.
Aside from the same
sensor and processor
as the Olympus OM-D,
the Olympus PEN E-P5
boasts an impressively
fast maximum shutter
speed of 1/8000 sec.
That's something that
is currently offered by
the likes of professional
DSLRs, such as the
Nikon D4 and Canon
5D Mark III , so to see
it on a CSC priced at just £899 (around AU
$1,368 / US$1,399) is quite something.
That fast shutter speed means that not only
should the camera be capable of capturing fast-
moving subjects, it can also shoot at wide
apertures in bright sunlight. Combine that with
the new low sensitivity setting of ISO 100, and
you've got a recipe for some really creative
outdoor work.
Olympus knows that it is a brand enjoyed by the
creative photographer, so it's no surprise to see
a high number of digital filters, such as Cross
Process and Dramatic Tone, making a
reappearance on the latest model of the camera.
There's also the addition of Focus Peaking, a
great tool for those who want to focus manually.
Live Time and Live Bulb, the innovative way of
shooting long exposures as introduced on the
Olympus OM-D, is also found on the Olympus E-
P5. This enables you to shoot very long
exposures while watching the image build up on
the screen. It takes the guesswork out of this
kind of photography, since you can see exactly
when to stop the shutter. Olympus has now
included a histogram view while using this mode
to further assist the user.
A Photo Story mode is also included. This is
something that made its debut on the Olympus
XZ-10 compact camera and basically enables
you to create a montage of photos within the
camera itself. Unlike on the Olympus XZ-10,
however, each photo that makes up the montage
is saved in raw format, as well as a JPG of the
finished montage. This means you can use each
individual photo at a later date if you want to.
Another feature brought across from the Olympus
OM-D is the 5-axis image stabilisation system.
Compensating for pitch, rolling, yaw and
horizontal and vertical movement, the results of
this stabilisation can now be seen in Live View
thanks to improvements in battery technology.
We'll be especially keen to put this particular
feature to the test when a full Olympus PEN E-P5
sample comes in for review.
Shooting at up to 9fps
is possible, but again
this has been improved
from the Olympus OM-
D as this 9fps also
includes continuous
autofocusing. Add in
tracking and the rate is
a still pretty impressive
5fps. This is another
feature we'll be keen to
put through its paces.
Improving the speed of the camera is something
Olympus has seemingly worked very hard on. The
new Olympus PEN E-P5 boasts a start-up time
of just 0.5 seconds, something that is matched
only by the Fuji X-E1 when in its fast switch-on
mode. We'll be interested to see how short the
shot-to-shot and processing times are, though
with the TruePic VI processor onboard, it's likely
to be very fast.
Olympus admits it has been late to the Wi-Fi
party, but the PEN E-P5 is now fully equipped
with this built in. The company claims being late
has enabled it to study and improve upon the
competitor's offerings. One such feature is the
ability to scan a QR code to connect the camera,
rather than having the hassle of entering
passwords.
While the Olympus PEN E-P3 had a fixed
touchscreen, the Olympus PEN E-P5 has a tilting,
capacitive device. It's the same 3-inch device as
found on the Olympus OM-D, so we expect a
very responsive and easy to use design. The
touchscreen enables the autofocus point to be
altered, or the shutter itself fired.
Build quality and handling
Olympus has used a very similar handling design
to the previous incarnation of the camera, but
with some very noticeable and welcome
improvements on the Olympus PEN E-P5. The
chassis is very similar to its predecessor,
featuring a fairly chunky grip, which is
particularly useful when shooting one-handed. A
rubberised thumb rest sits at the back of the
camera to give a bit of extra purchase too.
Unlike the Olympus PEN E-P3, the Olympus PEN
E-P5 uses a switch to turn it on, rather than a
button. This might seem like a trivial point, but it
enables quicker start-up times. It has been
recessed slightly into the body of the camera to
prevent accidentally switching it on while in a
bag or pocket.
Like its predecessor, it
uses a capacitive
touchscreen, which can
be used to set the
autofocus point or fire
the shutter release. One
of the most noticeable
improvements is the
now tilting screen. It's
useful for angling away
from any disturbing
glare or reflections that
might be present - although it didn't seem to
suffer too badly when we used it.
It sits remarkably flush against the back of the
camera, so much so that you might not even
realise it's a tilting device at all. While an
articulating screen would be more useful for
portrait format shots, it would undoubtedly have
added to the bulk of the camera.
At the top of the camera is a mode dial enabling
quick transitions between the various modes on
offer, such as fully automatic, semi-automatic
(aperture or shutter priority) and manual modes.
There's also a space here for art modes, scene
modes and - new to the PEN range - Photo Story
mode.
Also on top of the camera is a Function button,
which can be customised to suit your particular
requirements. The previous version on the
Olympus PEN E-P3 required diving into the menu
if you wanted to alter ISO or metering, but a new
way of working has been introduced onto the
Olympus PEN E-P5.
A small switch around the movie record button
marked with positions 1 and 2 enables you to
alter the function of the two dials at the back
and front of the camera. Position 1 controls
aperture/shutter speed and exposure
compensation (depending on the mode you're
shooting in), while flipping to Position 2 changes
the modes to ISO and white balance. It's a quick
system that should really speed up the basic
operation of the camera.
A sort of quick menu can be found by pressing
the OK button in the centre of the four-way
navigational pad for accessing other commonly
used settings. If you need to delve further to
change more complicated settings, you can do
this via the main menu. As with other PEN
cameras, it can be a little disjointed to use when
you're not used to it.
Although the touchscreen can't be used to
navigate through the menu, you can use it with
the "Live SCP" panel. This is a type of quick
menu overlaid across the screen (and which is
different from the menu which appears at the
side of the screen) that first needs to be
activated from a confusingly placed submenu
within the main menu. Why Olympus has chosen
to hide this function away is a little confusing,
but once you've found it, it makes accessing key
settings much quicker.
Using the Wi-Fi functionality of the camera is
very easy. A "virtual" button on the touchscreen
can be pressed for instant access. Once you've
downloaded the IOS or Android app for your
smartphone or tablet, it's very easy to connect
to the camera as all you need to do is scan a QR
code generated by the camera and the
connection will be made – taking away the need
to have to enter fiddly long passwords etc.
Once connected, you can use the app to remotely
control the camera, although disappointingly,
only fully automatic mode is compatible here, so
you'll lose control over more advanced settings.
However, you can use the app to transfer across
images to your device for uploading to social
networking sites. It's also possible to switch off
the camera via the app, which is useful if you're
controlling the camera from across the room.
Hopefully Olympus will consider upgrading the
app's capabilities to include more advanced
remote control settings.
The E-P5 doesn't have a built-in viewfinder, but
you can plug one in via the hotshoe and port
below it. The VF-4 was launched at the same
time as the E-P5 and is a fantastic addition to
the camera. With its high resolution and tilting
capability, it's useful if you prefer to work in this
way, though of course you will need to pay extra
for it. Having an optional viewfinder does help to
keep the overall size of the camera down though.
Performance
The Olympus PEN E-P3 was an extremely
capable camera in its own right, but putting the
proven excellent Olympus OM-D sensor inside the
new, even-more-retro styled body is very likely
to be a winning combination - dare we say it,
even better than the OM-D itself.
We've already seen how that incredible sensor
can be used to good effect in both the Olympus
PEN E-PL5 and the Olympus PEN E-PM2 , so to
see it in the top of the line PEN CSC is very
welcome.
Happily, we've been extremely pleased with what
the camera is capable of. Images are very bright
and punchy, while that 16.1 million-pixel sensor
can resolve a fantastic amount of detail.
Many Micro Four Thirds doubters will call into
question the low light performance of a small
sensor. While it's true it can't really compete
with the likes of full-frame bodies, it's more than
a match for the likes of the larger sensored
bodies from Sony and Canon, all the while having
the advantage of a smaller overall system.
As we've seen on other Olympus cameras, there
are plenty of shooting modes to help you get the
most from every situation. So, if you're
photographing something with particularly vibrant
colours, you could use Vivid modes, while Portrait
mode could be more suited to producing neutral
skin tones.
Speed is one of the key boasts Olympus is
making about this camera, with plenty of stats
being thrown around about its start-up, shot-to-
shot, and autofocusing times. We have been very
impressed by how this translates in reality. Start
up, focus acquisition and firing off the shutter
can be achieved in just a couple of seconds from
cold, while once the camera is on speed is well,
speedy.
The fast processor inside the camera means that
even while it is busy applying 12 different art
filters while in art bracketing mode, you can still
continue to shoot. Autofocusing speeds are
equally impressing, being almost instantaneous in
good light, and only dropping ever so slightly as
the light fades.
Speaking of low light, image noise is kept
impressively low throughout the sensitivity range.
At lower ISOs images are very crisp and detail
packed, while noise starts to creep in from
around ISO 800. It only starts to become
particularly noticeable once you get higher up the
scale though, towards the 1600 mark, while even
images shot at much higher sensitivities, such as
ISO 3200, are still very much useable, especially
at small printing and web sizes.
For the majority of shooting conditions,
automatic white balance does a good job of
reproducing accurate colours, but it does tend to
err towards warmer tones under artificial light, in
which case you'll want to switch to a more
appropriate white balance setting. Similarly, all
purpose metering (named ESP metering by
Olympus) does a good job in the majority of
conditions to produce a balanced exposure. If
shooting very high contrast scenes, you may
want to switch to spot metering for the best
results.
Like the OM-D, the E-P5 has 5-axis image
stabilisation. This system offers compensation
for five different types of image shake and does
an excellent job of reducing image blur when
shooting hand held.
One of the distinguishing features of any Olympus
camera is its art filters. The E-P5 has the full
range available, like the E-PL5 and E-PM2. It's
worth experimenting with pretty much all of
them, but your favourites will of course be down
to personal preference. We're particularly fond of
Dramatic Tone, Cross Process and Toy Camera.
Luckily, unlike Panasonic cameras, you can keep
control over settings such as aperture and
shutter speed while using art filters on the E-P5,
and even more luckily, unlike a lot of other
cameras, you can shoot filters in raw format – so
if you decide down the line you'd prefer a clean
version of the shot, you can access that,
The E-P5's high resolution screen doesn't suffer
too badly from glare or reflection, apart from
perhaps in very bright direct sunlight. Of course
the benefit of a tilting screen is that you can
usually angle the screen away from any offending
glare if it's proving too problematic.
Image quality and resolution
As part of our image quality testing for the
Olympus PEN E-P5 review, we've shot our
resolution chart.
If you view our crops of the resolution chart's
central section at 100% (or Actual Pixels) you will
see that, for example, at ISO 100 the Olympus
PEN E-P5 is capable of resolving up to around 26
(line widths per picture height x100) in its
highest quality JPEG files.