Help Me Select: E-PM2 vs E-PL5 vs E-P3

NZ Scott wrote:

Sergey Borachev wrote:

And there is a third advantage with good high ISO performance (besides dim places and fast actions) that has not yet been mentioned, and that is providing more depth of field. Although M43 generally has a lot of DOF, it is still useful for many applications, like macro, sweeping landscape when you want the flowers in front as well as the distant hills all sharp, ... Any way, enough said.

2 extra stops of DR and high ISO are just too important for cameras like the E-P3 that can barely cope with normal scenes and general requirements.

Simply wrong.

Any half-decent photographer can get wonderful photographs out of an E-P3. If you can't then you shouldn't be blaming the camera.

Some recent shots with an E-P3:

The issue here is about selecting the best camera for the OP. It is not about whether wonderful photographs can be got from cameras with inherently poorer image quality. If one can get wonderful photographs out of the E-P3, then it would be even easier to get them and get more such wonderful photos from one with a significantly improved sensor, especially when there are more challenging lighting, motion, and other demands.

I often see people defending their equipment's honour by posting photos to "prove" something can actually be done in response to comments about weaknesses in their equipment. Of course, many things can be done up to a point, under optimal conditions, shooting 1000 times to get the result, and if ncessary using various tricks, PP, HDR, reducing to a small size for web publishing, etc to compensate for hardware weaknesses. Even BIF (a known weakness even in the E-M5) can be done by M43 cameras and many photos posted, but it is the keeper rate, the effort required, and the reserve or margin left for further cropping, for photo-shopping, enlargement potential etc that determines the worth of a camera over another.

Everything is relative. If you think the E-P3 is a very good camera, then that's fine. The E-PL5 or E-PM2 are even better, significantly better in their ability to capture the image with less noise, in darker conditions with better colours and details, less motion blur, or more depth of field when required.

In this case, it is a well known fact that the E-P3 and all M43 before the OM-D E-M5 struggled in high ISO and DR performance, even though you can often get wonderful pictures if the situations are not too demanding or can compensate with some extra work and preparation.