Olympus PEN-F vs E-PL8 vs E-P5

twood0202 wrote:

The PEN-F looks nice but is awfully expensive (~$1000).

Deliberately expensive as Olympus tries to survive the downturn in the camera market.

The E-PL8 (~$550) doesn't seem to have great reviews.

Reviewers don't take it seriously I suspect. That camera is designed and marketed to women in Japan but it is very capable for anyone to use.

I found a used E-P5 for sale around $380 which seems more appealing,

Now you are talking (rabid E-P5 fan here) the E-P5 is a good camera but misses out on the later features of silent shutter (fully electronic option) and misses out on neat features like Live Composite though it does have Live Time exposure.

although I find it hard to believe that camera (or at least touch screen) technology hasn't improved substantially since it was released in 2013. Is the E-P5 still competitive or would I regret that body in a couple years?

No regrets for me, I'm sitting on a pair of E-P5 and hoping they will last until something significantly better comes along - not seen yet for me. My failing is that I eventually want a camera with a global shutter, may need to wait a while.

One benefit of the new bodies is then I can get the 14-42EZ lens for a reasonable price with the current deals. Size is important to me, so I'm willing to lose some image quality to get a compact camera that I'll be comfortable carrying around with me during long travel.

The lens size doesn't worry me so I use the chunky 12-40/2.8 on my E-P5. As a standard zoom backup I bought a "never used" Panasonic 12-32mm lens, that one is really small.

Is it crazy to buy the Pen-F?

Not if you can afford it and it has the features that you need.

Is the E-P5 already out of date or still a good buy?

Old camera but still a good one. I am set on a tilt up/down screen and can't handle those sideways flippy out things as a screen only user. See my timeline to get a handle on some of the differences in bodies.http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/olyepl1/80-Oly-timeline.html

Regards.... Guy