Before I make up my mind about which camera to buy I thought I would like to here about the E-5 from people who know about it. Seems to me that:
1. It is 2x crop factor much smaller than the competition
"How long is a piece of string?"
The answer to that is:
"It is precisely 2 times as long as from one end to the middle."
But who can answer…
How small is something which is "much smaller"?
It is much smaller than the much larger ones, but much larger than the much smaller ones. It is the smallest DSLR.
2. 12mp vs 16-18 on latest cameras
Right.
3. No data on their Noise level and DR
No, not yet.
I know it has some special qualities mostly in terms of WB and lenses... It may have more that I don't know... I do know that what I shoot is landscape, portraits and still lives
So my questions are:
1. for a person w no lenses - does it make sense to start a system base on E-5
No, it makes no sense unless you buy lenses as well, and when you buy lenses buy only the best ones.
No, not for someone who is not having any lenses already. It is however a lot cheaper to buy the E-5 than a new system if you already have a lot of money buried in lenses and other stuff connected to the system.
An oversized, exclusive P&S, the future of Oly consumer grade bodies.
how will it affect future use of E5 or future cameras
It won't affect the pro DSLR bodies, at least not for now. It will affect the lens development, since as it seems that's stopped as far as FourThirds is concerned.
4. how good is high iso and Dynamic range
Good for some, but not good for others. Wait for proper reviews.
5. are body and lenses sealed
The E-5 is yes. Some lenses are, others are not. The expensive HG/SHG lenses are all sealed but the much cheaper SG lenses are not.
6. does older om lenses fit on the camera or need an adapter
Need an adapter. The adapter does not allow you to control anything, the aperture is always set to what you have selected on the aperture dial, meaning that lenses can practically only be used wide open. Metering works but you will not get focus confirmation. IS works with primes but with zooms only with severe limitations, since zoom lenses can not be defined in the IS setup. Only one legacy lens can be defined, so if you change lens you have to change the settings as well.
Another option is to use adapters with focus confirmation and some limited EXIF data. These emulate digital lenses and fool the camera to believe that it has a digital lens on it. The advantage is focus confirmation. The disadvantage is that you have to buy an adapter to each lens or have to reprogram every time you change lens. If you are not doing that then IS will become practically useless and even metering can be messed up.
Another disadvantage is that the adapters I have seen are of bad quality, some can cause damage to your camera as well. Unfortunately Olympus never really cared to update their MF-1, which is a very high quality adapter, but has no electronics.
Of course, the best solution would be if the camera would support the focus confirmation even for legacy lenses on it's own and if it would contain a lens table, just like it contains a focus tuning lens table. We all know by now that that's never going to happen.
7. how difficult is it to shoot manual lenses
Very difficult if you ask some people, quite easy if you ask some others. It is probably the best to use live view for MF, in which case it is easy, as easy as with any other camera. If you want to use the OVF than manual focus is considerably more difficult.
I know I am asking a lot but all questions are asked for a reason.
Thanks for your consideration
Good luck.
--
Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.
(Malcolm Muggeridge)
