MJ Photo is correct. The C-AF of my Pen F was awful, can’t speak to video. The appeal was the styling and the super build quality of the case. And, above, all the film type Profiles behind that much maligned Creative Dial, which were JPEG only and drove Rew-Only-and-Forever shooters crazy.
Yes, I pretty much agree with that. I never use C-AF or video. I almost never use the Creative Dial either, but I think it is rather cool.
Technically, my OM-5 surpasses the Pen F I had in all aspects.
It sounds like you found a way to have 4 Custom modes on the mode dial of the OM-5 like on the PEN-F. I searched for a way to do it back when the OM-5 came out, but could not find it.
And maybe you found a way to have Auto ISO to go up above ISO 6400 like on the PEN-F too.
Those are the 2 main reasons I decided not to get an OM-5. I stopped looking at it after I discovered those downgrades from the PEN-F, E-M10 II, E-M10, E-M5 II, E-P5, etc. so I did not follow later firmware updates. Have these things now been restored to the OM-5? If so then I may look into it again.
No, no 4 custom modes. I think there is a way to do 3 custom modes, buts kind of kludgy.
For my use case if I need more than ISO 6400, I switch to guns (manual ISO). So far, I’ve not felt encumbered by the OM-5 and the other advances from the Pen F have overridden any shortcomings, at least for my uses.
I will admit I thought long and hard about selling the Pen F. Walking around, it did look good on me.
Okay, for a minute there you got my hopes up.
We all have certain features we highly treasure and use and other features we care little about and maybe even never use. Unfortunately, for me Olympus and OMS have started disabling some of the firmware features (not hardware features, not body features) which I find hard to fathom. But they are free to do as they like and so am I. The last new Olympus I bought was the PEN-F in 2016. There are several I would have bought since then though if they had not dropped these features. Oh well, no big deal. Olympus/OMS have made it clear they do not want my money. I would hate to anger them by giving them more.
Currently I am giving thought to the Sony A6700 ($1399) and Fuji X-S20 ($1299). Both are 26mp APS-C and fairly small bodies. For example, the A6700 is smaller/lighter than the OM-1. Both have great face/people detect AF, both have multiple custom modes on the command dial, both have great Auto ISO implementations (better than Olympus/OMS), etc. If I end up with one of them I probably would just get 2-3 of the smaller lenses.
We have been traveling in various countries around the world since May 2023 when Japan returned the re-entry rules for non-Japanese back to the pre-covid rules. Maybe get back to Japan next month though. Ready.
After that I will think about what to do. Unfortunately, Sony (unlike Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Panasonic, Pentax, Olympus/OMS, etc.) makes it difficult if you want a non-Japanese menu of one of their cameras bought in Japan.
