I want value, not salesmanship Is the Olympus OM-D E-M5 possibly the best value for my dollar?

Micro Four Thirds Talk

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Aloha,
jan/aja
***FCAS Member #128, Oly Division***
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I don't know about the other mirrorless camera brands but the Olympus micro 4/3 cameras do not shoot telephoto and especially not birds well. The focus is too slow to catch birds and the telephoto lenses aren't the best use of this system. Try asking this question on the Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum for better answers on the OM-D EM-5. This is the Olympus Four Thirds (DSLR) Talk forum

An Olympus DSLR is a much better option for telephoto or birding. Find a used E-3 for half the price of the new OM-D EM-5 or a new E-5 for a few dollars more than the EM-5 with the grip and a 4/3 lens converter. Any of the recent Olympus DSLR are going to provide better results for what you're wanting to shoot. Look for either an E-3, E-30, E-620 or an E-5.

Then for the telephoto look for the Standard Grade 40-150 mm or the High Grade 50-200 mm f/2.8-3.5 lens (100-400 mm equivalent), depending on your budget.

If you shop carefully you can find factory refurbished or good used camera and lenses for a lot less than new. The EM-5 is no bargain compared to a DSLR. Add up all the lenses you need to match a DSLR with a few zooms. The zooms for m4/3 are not that great compared to a DSLR.

Cameras will always be improving and new models will always be just over the horizon. The lenses are what you should consider the most important investment.

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Dave
No thought exists without an image. Socrates
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It will be a universal constant that any camera manufacturer will constantly tout new technology, as so many seem to judge everything by the latest and greatest technology. I see plenty of that in the forum as well as in life. That being said, I would look at independent reviews of any of the camera bodies from several different pro or semi pro outfits. You are right, the purchase of a camera can be a major expense, and you have identified the objects and settings you would like to shoot. Look for the camera, look at the reviews, and pretty much ignore the obsolescence factor, as that will hit every maker, and every camera will eventually fall from the latest and greatest technology pedestal.

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E-5, E-620 and E-420
7-14, 9-18, 11-22, 12-60, 14-42, 14-45, 17.5-45, 18-180, 25, 35, 40-150, 50, 50-200, 70-300, 150

The reviews are certainly very positive.  There is another important thing if you want a one lens does all solution, the Olympus mega-zoom gets very good reviews too.

The one worrisome remark I read that stuck in my mind was in a review in Popular Photography magazine.  It said the grip for holding the camera was not very good.  They recommended buying the optional grip/battery for using the camera.  That certainly would diminish the bang for the buck.  I would recommend trying one is a store to see if it feels good in your hands.

The E-M5 will be a nice progression from your finepix s5000 you should feel right at home and be able to grow with it, you'll find yourself 12, 24 and more months down the line still discovering it's many unique features :-] BTW there is are many  friendky O-MD groups on flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/om-d_user/

living life to the Four Thirds!
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Birds are pretty small things and you did mention backyard pictures. Backyard birds tend to be at the small end of the bird spectrum so will be very small. They also tend to "flit" a lot and it would be an extremely lucky photographer who catches one on the wing between one tree and the next, although a feeding station would help. A four thirds camera with phase detect auto focus might suit your needs better than a micro four thirds which uses contrast detect autofocus.

If you are drawn to the smaller sized cameras you might consider an E-620 (someone found a new one not long ago) + 14-54mm + 70-300mm zoom. A refurbished camera and both lenses (even if purchased new) would be around the price of a E-M5 + kit lens and give you the focus speed and focal length you need. There is some doubt (to put it mildly) over the future expansion of the four thirds system from the current lineup but from what you say this would not be a problem for you. The E-M5 is a great camera but the fantastic sensor will only work if you can get the picture in the first place.

No camera is a perfect fit or best value for everyone, it depends on your needs.

Is your backyard large, w birds up in the trees in shadows or will you be shooting them on a fairly well lit feeder outside your window? (In other words, will a slowish medium tele in the 40-150 range do the job, or do you need a longer (300mm) or faster (f2.8 or better) lens?)

You want to keep[ the size of the lenses down too?

Do you like a lot of controls, options and flexibility, or do you want a camera that is fairly simple to work?

Do you prefer a viewfinder or LCD screen?  Do you need both?

Any interest in video?

Size- you say the OM-D is the right size for you, so we can rule out cameras like the E-3/5/30?

Have you looked at the latest PENs? (similar IQ, but lack VF and weather sealing, and have simpler interface) or the Panasonics? (grip built in, better video implementation, lacks image stabilization) or the E-620? (not much larger than the E-M5, uses 4/3 lenses w/o adapter, but can't use m43 lenses, discontinued so may be hard to find, but cost much less than a new OM-D)

What I like about the E-M5:

the removable grip... although I didn't like paying $300 extra for it.

the flexibility in customizing the controls.

the magnified view for manual focusing and 2x digital zoom function almost does away w the need for a teleconverter.

The excellent small primes that are available in m43

the 12-50mm lens for it's compact size relative to 4/3 lenses of similar range, although it does have a slowish aperture.

The 100-300mm- although huge by m43 standards, it's still smaller than the (4/3) 70-300mm, and seems a bit sharper (the 75-300 is more compact and sharper still, but even slower aperture and twice the price)

Note, there are hints that Oly will come out w a fast 40-150 next year, if that would be of interest.

Is the E-M5 the best value?  Well, it may not be the most camera for the buck, you are paying a premium for it's particular combination of features, but if it meets your needs, it's worth the price

And yes, you will get some more favorable responses on the m43 forum, as there are more there with E-M5s and several on here who resent posts about m43 cameras on this forum for 4/3 cameras with mirrors

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Art P
"I am a creature of contrast,
of light and shadow.
I live where the two play together,
I thrive on the conflict"

with 4/3 cameras is they weren't much better at BiFs than the OM-D. (OK, I never tried an E-3/5 for that purpose) But manual focusing can be more reliable in either format.

I have found my E-M5 + Panny 100-300 a big improvement over the E=520 + 70-300 for shooting passing planes.  Of course, that's not saying much, as the latter's performance was dismal

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Art P
"I am a creature of contrast,
of light and shadow.
I live where the two play together,
I thrive on the conflict"

If your main interest is telephoto shots of birds I think that at the moment mFT is sadly lacking in both CAF and lens choice, the lenses over 100mm {200mm FF } are slow aperture zooms none of them are exactly stellar performers. Small nimble birds are no easy subject. The GH2 is within a stop of the E-M5 in sensor output { far, ahead of the Fuji} , has excellent video performance and can be picked up for a fraction the price of the E-M5. There are better shorter zooms like the Panasonic 35-100 and some excellent primes such as the 75mm but they are not exactly, dirt cheap.

Probably the best price to performance ratio for your use would be a GH2 + 100-300mm not perfect but you can pick both the camera and lens up for the price of the E-M5 alone.

Jim

The EM5 is a great camera but not a great value. A great value is the EPL1, originally introduced at $699, and was recently available as a demo with a 1 year warranty for $129 minus lens. Mounted on a tripod, and a $100 300mm legacy lens, you could spend many happy hours this summer waiting for the right bird to land in the spot you picked for it.

Isn't that what birding is all about? No one walks out there with a $999 EM5 and a $799 75-300 lens and nails a bird in flight in the first 10 minutes do they?

By the way, I got lucky here. The only eagles I had seen while driving to and thru Alaska were dots in the sky or stuffed in displays, but here we were in the lot outside the McDonalds in Sitka. Taken with an Olympus E510 DSLR and a 40-150 zoom. You can buy a used E510 for $199 and this same lens  for maybe $99.

Cropped big time.

I echo those who say, start with competent but less expensive gear. If this proves to be a hobby you like, then spend more.

A few things:

- The OM-D is a good value for the dollar, it is probably the best m43 camera, or at least - close to it, but it is NOT the best value for the dollar, as it remains pricey and you might not need some of its features.

- Unless "telephoto" is defined as "shooting a hawk in hot pursuit of a panicking swallow", micro four thirds cameras are far from bad in "telephoto". They are certainly better than any E-XXX camera with a 70-300mm 4/3 lens, which is the setup they compare to when set with the Panasonic 100-300mm or the Zuiko 75-300mm.

The 4/3 cameras that are really better in some types of telephoto (the ones requiring some sort of continuous AF and a more discerning AF able to lock on smaller and less contrasty objects) is the E-30 / E-3 / E-5 trio coupled with HG and SHG telephoto lenses.

While these setups are genuinely better and would beat the crap out of an m43 telephoto setup day in and day out, they are a completely different experience - weight wise, price wise, size wise, which you have to be sure you will like.

It's the classic conundrum in high tech: if I wait, something better will come along.  It's always that way, always has been, always will be. However, if you wait, you aren't using it. And what you're waiting for may not be important to you.

The EM5 is a pretty good deal, considering what you're getting. You're getting a weathersealed midrange dslr, that's quite a bit smaller, lighter, and slightly less expensive than what the other companies offer. Photos of it really don't show this. When I first pulled my EM5 out of the box, my initial impression was - wow, this is small.

The image quality is quite good. For personal use, anything over 16mp is overkill. Arguably, 16mp is overkill, but as long as you have it, may as well use it. Same with the low light capability - with the EM5, it's very good. You can get better, but would you use it, and would you be willing to pay more for it, and get a camera that is substantially larger and heavier?

It's important to consider that the improvements you're waiting for may not matter to you.

The one shortcoming of the EM5, and M43 cameras in general, is the cost of the lenses. They're still a bit high. Not outrageously priced, but a bit high, because it's a new system and there aren't many used lenses on the market.

However, for shooting birds in the back yard, there is a solution for that. It's called the ZD 70-300 lens. It's a long telephoto, built for the larger Olympus 4/3 system, and can be bought on the used market for $200-250. That's about half what the telephoto lenses made for Micro 4/3 cost. You will need an adapter (about $100), but the Olympus ZD 70-300 works very well on the EM5.

So there you have it. Get the EM5 with 12-50 lens, and you have a weathersealed package with a decent (but not fantastic) lens, that also has a close up ability. Add the 4/3 to M4/3 adapter, and the ZD 70-300 lens, and you have birds in the back yard.

You're going about it backwards then.

Go find backyard bird photos that impress you from any and all forums,

find out which lens was used to get most of the pictures and if it falls into your affordable range.

Buy a used copy of THAT EXACT LENS and a new up to date body which fits the lens well.

I can guarantee  doing it this way will NOT lead you to an e-M5,

but it is still the best way to get what you really really want.

First, you can absolutely use m4/3 to take terrific photos of backyard birds and the images will be much better than anything you have been getting with your current camera.  A DSLR and fast telephoto lens will be easier for FLYING birds, but there is no reason not to consider m4/3 for backyard birds - and I should know, as I take such photos every day with my EM5 and EP2 before that.

Second, the best 'values' are always going to be last year's models - and 'salesmanship' will try to convince you that those models no longer work, but of course they do and of course, they work well.  You can get EP2 or EPL2 for about $200 now.  Or get EPM2 or EPL5 - with same image quality as EM5 - for much less now.  Another good value is Panasonic GX1 - less than $400.

Next year's EM5 (which wouldn't surprise me if Olympus waits a year or more before updating that camera) will have refinements.  It won't be revolutionary, unless they solve the merger of 4/3 and m4/3, which doesn't affect you anyway.

For value, why not look at Panasonic FZ200?  For m4/3 (or any interchangeable lens system), the expense is not in the camera but in the lenses -- and if you don't buy expensive lenses, then you don't get the value of the system.  Something like the Panny (or other branded long zoom) covers everything in one cost - that's more 'value'.

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Roberto M.

Sorry, but I totally disagree with that approach.  All it does is show you which particular lens and camera is the most popular as used by skilled enthusiasts.

'Most popular' doesn't mean anything other than 'most popular'.  It could be cheapest, most available, easiest to use, been around the longest, best company distribution, smallest, lightest, most waterproof, newest, oldest, etc. Rarely does it mean the 'best', although it could mean that.

You'll never know, because you are seeing the work of 'skilled enthusiasts' - they could get great results with any system.

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Roberto M.

I disagree with your disagreement.

Most popular : always for a reason. Use it to your advantage.

I'm a little skeptical that a tiny, feature-loaded, magnesium-bodied, weather-sealed, and expensive camera is your best choice - for your stated purposes.  Panasonic has some well-regarded telephoto lenses but, on an Olympus body, the distortion is not automatically corrected in-camera as it would be on a Panasonic body. Perhaps that's not a big issue for your shooting of birds. Then again, Panasonic doesn't have access to better-performing sensors (from Sony) nor do they have in-body image stabilization so...

Personally, I'd encourage you to look at a used or refurbished Nikon or Canon entry-level DSLR along with a long, telephoto lens and a good-enough tripod & head (which alone starts around $250). That would seem to be the best value for your dollar.

to disagree!  

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Roberto M.

If you want pics of birds in your backyard and are not trying to get shots of them flying away, the E-M5 is the perfect camera.

First, there is no other camaera that can match the stabilization of the E-M5. This means you can take all your pics handheld if you want...and that stabilization works with ANY lens. 

Second, if you are will to manually pre-focus, you can use virtually ANY lens on the planet. You will quickly find great telephoto lenses for under $100 that match the image quality of their auto-focus siblings that cost well over $1000.

Third, because of the sensor size in the E-M5, lenses have more reach. A 100mm lens becomes a 200mm and a 300mm becomes a 600mm lens.