Can Anyone List Why The E5 is Competitive and Should Be Higher Rated?

I especially like the first one (also very nice framing)!
Please post more !

Here's a shot with blurry edges, though no camera system on earth would have given me sharp edges/corners, nor would I want it to. The whole point of this type of shot is to concentrate the viewer's attention on the subject, not what the road surface looks like





For the majority of my photos the edges are unimportant - even when I use my Oly gear. YMMV of course and probably does, but to say edges are important to everyone is just misleading. And cropping for printing works both ways - depends on what size you print at, for example 20x30 prints would mean more cropping for a 4/3s photo to fit

Nick

I don't necessarily disagree with DPR's review as a whole but there's a lot they didn't cover that makes the camera what it is and I think makes it worthy of more respect than it's given.

1. In Camera Stabilizer. I shake in my old age and feel stabilization is a must for me. It's nice not to have to pay for this every time I buy a lens.

2. 2X 35mm Equivalence factor for lenses. With 4/3 a 50-200 2.8-3.5 lens is the equivalent of a 100-400mm 2.8-3.5 lens and so on. I knew I would be shooting mostly animals, birds and such and the 4/3's longer reach is better for focusing than just cropping. Being able to manual focus an image taken with a 300mm lens and EC-20 at 1200mm in Live View at 10X magnification is a heck of a lot better than cropping.

3. Dust Reduction. Olympus has the first automatic sensor cleaning system offered by anyone and it's still recognized as the best on the market. I live in West Central Texas and in the four years since I've been using Olympus I've yet to need to clean a sensor. I've also never missed a shot while my camera cleaned the sencor.

4. Pixel Mapping. Olympus pixel mapping saves the day for a many a photographer if they happen to get a stuck pixel. What do the other guy's do when this happens?

5. The Olympus E-5 has the best JPEG engine of anyone as far as I can tell. With the advancment in JPEG IQ it's not necessary to shot RAW to get excellent images.

--
DonR
http://donr.zenfolio.com/

I don't think the 2X is all that big anymore. Other brands have surpassed in MP and as someone mentions you can shoot in crop mode on Nikon bodies...heck my D2X will even go 2X too! And ups the fps to 8 or so and stills focuses like a champ!

The focusing is off just enough with Olympus or something even with the E5's reduced AA filter that Nikon/Canon bird shots just seem sharper and more feather details.

Just came back from shooting eagles with a D2X and 300f4 AFS wide open and I was so surprised I could shoot the 300f4 wide open! Sharp as a tack...how can that be? Only Olympus lens can be shot wide open if you listen to folks drinking the kool aid here.

So what does the E5 have that others might want:

weather sealing in a "not too" expensive price...though others are catching up at lower price points. Nikon D7000 maybe not quite as good but a lot less $'s too

tilt screen - this is a big plus I think...for my astronomy stuff it's a neck saver!

Other things like dust buster and viewfinder not so much anymore though nice to see the E5 has a good viewfinder! I do find manually focusing with Nikon D3 / D2X much easier however for some reason.

If you go "out" to the system of Olympus gear I think they have some great lens construction and some very nice zoom ranges. Pity no portrait primes that focus real well...sorry 50 gotta toss ya out in low light...whir whir...whir whir stop! 2 tries full range each way then stop with total oof!

Dan

Digirame said:

There's many reasons like sharpness and quality Zuiko lenses, but one other I would like to mention is the 2.0x crop factor. The 4/3rds system is in a class by itself.

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Totally agree!!

Viewfinder great
Weathersealing
White Balance
Color Accuracy
Detail
Exposure Accuracy

Zuiko Lenses

I have been using a friends backup D300 for the last few months, if I had to choose between the E-5 and the D300, I could flip a coin. I have seen the D300 hunt in focusing and really not sure about colors and I have few other problems with it. I have played with the E-5, and it has a comfortable feel to it. Right now I could get a D300 much cheaper than an E-5 and I know there is a future.

as far as the D400, we will see if the features and advancements are worth the price. If it is incremental over the E-5, the answer is no and I would purchase the E-5 with the hope that the E-5 being about 1yr old by the time the D400 comes out, will have a price reduction. If the D400 has a clean ISO 1600, better video and wider DR as well as better AF, then it will be worth it to me.

At the same time, I want to see what the Pro-m43 will have to offer.

I could go either way right now. With Olympus I am confortable but I want to know there is a future. I feel I am going to wake up and 4/3 will be discontinued and that the Oly reps are not being exactly straight forward.

My plan is to use the E-30 till this coming December and hopefully have a enough information on what is available to make an actual decision and make a purchase for Xmas.

I think people are funny. It seems to me that people assume that a camera that gets 79% is definitively better in every way than one that scores 75%. Well that's the 5DII compared with the E-5. The K5 gets 83% so it must be better than them all, right? In my opinion Pentax just did a really good job at being consistently good across the board. But the others have strengths that may be high priorities for individuals. The 5DII stomps the competition in RAW headroom, DR, and depth of field control due to it's large sensor. The E-5 has the build quality with the equally sealed zooms that might attract certain buyers. So there are the things that make the E-5 competitive to me:

1. robust sealing with equally sealed lenses in mid and high price brackets (especially nice to have the mid priced HG lenses that are sealed).
2. jpg engine that is the best in the business.
3. dust buster that is the best in the business.
4. nice pixel mapping feature.
5. really nice wide angle zooms as well as the 2x advantage for telephoto.
6. tilt-swivel LCDs even on pro cameras.
7. the option of a pro-spec body without the cost, size, weight of a FF sensor inside.
8. pro-spec body without integrated vertical grip really does reduce size.
9. competitive IQ with APS-C.

No one else offers as close to what I want. The K5 is dang close except for the lenses. What could replace the 50-200mm? Who else offers a truly pro-spec weather sealed body that is not FF size, price, and weight without vertical grip? What about a pro body with a tilt screen? Dust buster seems to be often overlooked in reviews as does pixel mapping. In looking over the scores, the only area that I disagree in is the high ISO. I've seen the samples, but the scoring rates the K5 as twice as good as the E-5. I could quib about that. The K5 is better. How much of a practical advantage? Not as much as I would say having a tilt-swivel screen is a practical advantage.

My perspective is that while the DPR scoring is of interest to me, I also take it with a grain of salt because I know what I want and what is important to me. The scores are mostly based on what all cameras have in common, not how they might differentiate themselves from the others. For example. If there was a category for tiilt-swivel LCD, the K5 and 5DII would get a zero, and the E-5 would get a 100. Well, that would slant the scoring and should not be a category on it's own, but yet it could make the E-5 more competitive for my style of shooting than the others. Same with having the best JPGs, weather sealing, or a completely effective dust buster. And of course, as others have mentioned, lenses are not part of these scores, and we'd have a hard time getting along without them.

So basically, the E-5 is the most competitive camera out there for me because of it's differences and not because of comparisons between what all cameras have in common.

Cheers,
Seth

--
What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?

--
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wallygoots.blogspot.com

krh_57 said:

Will you be willing to pay $1999.00 for a D400?

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Nobody knows what the price of the D400 is going to be. However:

I bought a new D300s last year for something like £1200. Nikon had a promotion and there was a free SB900 with it.

The E5 is £1500 over here. No promotion. And its an incredible £450 for an FL50r

Maybe the prices are a little different in other parts of the world, but for anyone in the UK, then its a very hard thing to justify the cost of the Oly over the Nikon. Especially when you do a spec and performance comparison, because in most respects, the Nikon comes out on top despite its core design being nearly three and a half years old.

if Nikon do release a D400 and its considerably more expensive than the D300 has been, you can bet your bottom dollar that you'll be getting your monies work, and it will be worth it for some people to spend the extra over and above something like the D7000. If its $2k, the probability is that it will have the best DX sensor out there. state of the art AF, huge buffer, 10fps etc. It will pretty much justify the expense in relation to the rest of the market offerings.

Put a 500/4 on a canon xxD or 7D, add a 1.4 TC and look at the EFL - 1100+. The Canon 500/4 is in the same $ range as the Zuiko 300/2.8, sometimes more, sometimes less.

--
Rob Davies
http://www.pbase.com/searun

"Can Anyone List Why The E5 is Competitive and Should Be Higher Rated?"

Because they produced it, and tweaked the E-3, it is competitive. It is NOT the best camera. Neither is the 7D or K-5 or D7000 or higher priced options. All cameras have pluses and minuses. All equipment for them do too. It isn't just the camera. It is the lenses. Lots of people talk about them and people ignore that.

I'm not sure if the E-5 should be rated higher, but I know that some others have individual ratings that are too high, if the E-5 is accurate....
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Dale

Just as happened with the E-3 (Nikon made a big advances about that time with the D300) and the E-30 (Pentax made a smaller, weather sealed body), the E-5 once again comes out at a time when the other manufacturers are pushing the envelope that bit further. This time, it's mostly due to the Sony sensors (though Canon is no slouch either in this respect).

A nod should probably go for the all weather (and I mean "all weather") aspects of the E-5 though. I suspect to get anything close to that, you need to buy a D3 or a 1D. Also, in the right hands, Olympus makes a camera that can take photos that need little or no PP (the files from my E-PL1 don't really need any sharpening and the E-5 is even better). I can't believe that doesn't matter!

Olympus did work miracles with that "three year old sensor though". However, when it comes to the kind of technical review you see here, it comes down to a case of "close, but no cigar". Olympus might want to consider looking at recent history and learning it. Oh, and don't forget, at least at dpreview the cameras are measured at least partly in real world terms and not by some software written by a physicist.....

Wouldn't stop me buying one if I saw it for a price right for me though .

--
Regards
J

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Gear in profile

Who said anything about a myth? Where did you hear that? And how many of us are using a Zuiko 300/2.8 on this forum? It's the size and weight factor too. We all know that wildlife can be taken shooting with "cannons". There's many other brands that can be used for wildlife...is there anyone that doesn't know that?

A little edit: I realize that you may have been responding to the comment "birders and people needing ultimate tele should stick with the 4/3 system", but it need not be said in regards to a myth. It's true that there's other systems that will do excellent. I see these Canon photographers with their giant lenses and I like taking pictures of them. It's all about size, weight, cost and a lot of other factors.

So what other models offer sealed bodies as well as sensor cleaning?

forum lately--Wish I had a BIG PIN.

Ha--Dharma

The reason I went with Olympus in the first place . Apologies for forgetting about that absolute gem of a feature.
--
Regards
J

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Gear in profile

Kweide,

Beautiful, imaginative portraits!

currently in Thailand i can get a D7000 for £800, no idea of the E-5 haven't seen one yet, last year the D700's were under £1500.....but none left, so next Nikon body i buy i'll probably purchase over and save a good amount
--
Maggie Thatcher, your boyz took a hell of a beating

Dan said:

sorry 50 gotta toss ya out in low light...whir whir...whir whir stop! 2 tries full range each way then stop with total oof!

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True for the older Olys but not on the E-5. The opposite is the case. It's focusing amazingly fast on the E-5. When the sun is shining (I hope it will, somewhen in the near future) I'll even give it a go at running dogs. And I've got the feeling it will deliver.

snake_b said:

So what other models offer sealed bodies as well as sensor cleaning?

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pentax has been providing these things for quite some time now. K20 had it, k7 had it and now k-5 has it. All pentax dslrs have inbody stabilization (though all of them do not have weather sealing).

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::> I make spelling mistakes. May Dog forgive me for this.