E-PM1 vs E-PM2

crcostel wrote:

Sorry one more - I can get a new A5000 w/lens (I know its not an m43) for $250. For any with experience, how would that compare?

My A3000 has a similar sensor and I use that as a back for a Metabones Speedbooster plus manual focus lenses. It provides fine image quality but I do wish I had the A5000 instead--the A3000's screen and viewfinder are awful, just awful!

That aside, Sony's basic cameras use an electronic first curtain shutter, which means they avoid the shutter shock problem entirely (shutter-induced resonance vibrations that plague small cameras in general). They are great for critical work and will give you excellent prints, and the sensors are technically superior to those in Micro Four Thirds--but that also comes with a size cost.

I don't find the Sony lens system very compelling at this point (M43 has by far the most developed system of lenses out there other than Canon and Nikon's full frame systems), but I personally didn't buy mine for Sony's lenses. For me, the biggest risk with Sony is whether or not they're actually going to be supporting and developing for your product a couple years down the line. A couple years ago all their weight was behind their Alpha-mount SLTs, and now they've shifted seemingly all their attention away from APS-C E-mount to 35mm E-mount. In a couple more years they might have something else entirely. But if you just want a picture taking machine, there's nothing wrong with Sony and they put out a fine product.

Frankly, the E-PM2 has a better feature set-- Live Time mode, a feature unique to Olympus, is a godsend for tripod-based long exposure shooting (in Live Time and Live Bulb modes you get an actively developing preview of the image as you're shooting, rather than only at the end of the exposure--and the fact that the camera features a "time" mode as well as a bulb mode means you don't have to fuss with release cables). The E-PM2 is also a faster camera, much better suited for action photography.

All of the cameras you're looking at are very good, some might be better in some situations than others, but really I think you'd be happy with any of them. It just depends on what you plan to shoot.