Olympus OM-D E-M5 review

Olympus has a knack for fusing retro form with modern function, but it has set a high watermark with the OM-D E-M5. It recalls Olympus’ OM film cameras of the 1970s and 1980s, and uses the same Micro Four Thirds system as Olympus’ PEN and Panasonic’s 
G Series cameras, giving it access to a wide range of lenses.

Optical stabilisation is sensor-based, and it compensates for movement on five axes – rotational movement in three dimensions, plus horizontal and vertical shift.

Our tests at a 1/10s shutter speed and an 80mm (35mm equivalent) focal length produced a success rate of 83%, outstripping by some distance the scores of 50% to 63% achieved by other recent cameras.

The stabilisation also worked well during video capture, and the OM-D E-M5 generally excelled in video tests. Unlike DSLR lenses, many Micro Four Thirds lenses are designed for video, focusing smoothly and silently during capture. The picture was also extremely sharp, although moiré interference was visible in repeating patterns. Noise in dimly lit scenes was impressively low, but the ISO speed for videos peaks at only 3200.

This camera isn’t an ideal choice for serious videographers. The frame rate is fixed at 30fps, and although priority and manual exposure modes are available, the settings can’t be adjusted during capture. It isn’t even possible to move the autofocus point while recording – something that should be easy via the touchscreen. A microphone input is an optional extra, and there’s no manual volume control. Plus, the HDMI port is only active during playback, so it can’t be used to help frame shots using a camera-mounted portable monitor.

It’s certainly a handsome compact system camera (CSC), and as such it’s significantly smaller than any DSLR. It isn’t the ergonomic triumph we’d hoped for at this price, though. The buttons are small and have a squishy feel. Battery life is a concern as well, providing enough juice for only 330 shots. There’s no integrated flash, despite the substantial viewfinder hump, and the detachable flash unit made it awkward to use the viewfinder.

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is disappointing, with a small viewable area, and it’s much smaller and coarser than rivals. Live view is replaced by image reviews in the 9fps continuous mode, making it almost impossible to track moving subjects. Continuous autofocus isn’t available in this mode either, and performance slumped after 13 frames to 1.3fps for JPEGs and 1.2fps for raw files.

However, an alternative continuous mode, which includes live view and continuous autofocus managed 3.5fps for 26 shots. Although the contrast-detection autofocus systems used in CSCs are usually slower than DSLRs’ phase-detection autofocus, that’s far from the case – Olympus has autofocus mastered here; it’s very quick indeed.

Two command dials are welcome on such a slim camera, but there are no dedicated buttons to access photographic settings. You do get a pair of customisable buttons, plus another on the lens, but these aren’t enough to cover all the functions that enthusiast photographers regularly need. This leaves users to navigate onscreen icons via the navigation pad, and the layout of icons is disorientating. The touchscreen makes it easy to move the autofocus point, although it’s no use when using the viewfinder to compose shots. We really like the one-touch white balance, though, which calibrates the custom white balance extremely quickly.

Micro Four Thirds sensors are around half the size (by surface area) of the APS-C sensors used in DSLRs at this price, and a quarter that of full-frame sensors, so they’ll always have their work cut out to compete on image quality. The OM-D E-M5 acquitted itself extremely well, though, with crisp details in bright conditions that were on a par with – and often surpassed – the Canon EOS 60D and Nikon D7000.

However, there was a hint of noise reduction glossing over subtle textures, even at the lowest ISO 200 setting. Noise reduction was laid on thick at higher ISO speeds, taking a heavy toll on hair and other fine textures at ISO 1600 and above, but it kept JPEGs looking reasonably presentable up to ISO 6400. Chromatic aberrations aren’t corrected in-camera, but they were barely detectable from the 20-50mm kit lens.

The OM-D E-M5 is a competent all-rounder, but its main strengths – small size, fast autofocus when using the screen and smooth autofocus in video – are relatively minor compared with rival cameras’ superior controls and image quality in low light. The ageing Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 shares the same benefits but has superior controls and costs less, even with its superb 14-140mm kit lens thrown in.

Click the links below for full resolution sample shots:
Test scene shot at base ISO, raw file converted with Lightroom 4 (10MB)
Test scene shot at ISO 6400, raw file converted with Lightroom 4 (9MB)
Bridge scene, raw file coverted with Lightroom 4 (12MB)
Resolution test card (7MB)

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