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

Sergey Borachev wrote:

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.

Not necessarily. What if your situation demands flash? The E-PL5 does not have a built-in flash and my friends who own E-PLx cameras can't be bothered carrying an external flash. What about a street-shooting situation that requires fast changes to settings? The E-P3 has better ergonomics and an extra scroll wheel that allow for faster changes.

These are some reasons why I personally prefer to shoot with an E-P3 rather than an E-PLx or E-M5. I have auditioned E-Plx cameras and an E-M5 and did not buy them because I prefered the handling of the E-P3.

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.

And I often see people defending their arguments by relying on easily-reducible factors such as ISO numbers, megapixel counts and DR figures without giving any thought to real-world shooting situations such as how a camera handles.

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.

You continue to make this error in stating that the E-PL5 and E-PM2 cameras are "better" just because they have a newer sensor in them. There is more to a camera than just the sensor.

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.

It is a "well known fact" that pretty much all modern interchangable-lens cameras take great pictures and that some people are overly obsessed by incremental improvements in image quality at pixel-peeping level.