A Mini Review

I did not try the OMD E-M5. The VF4 is about the same physical size as the EVF for the GX1 but the view is better - brighter and better color. The difference is noticeable but evolutionary rather than revolutionary. By that I mean, it's better, but it's not the huge leap that the GF1 EVF to GX1 EVF was.

It is very well built and quite comfortable to hold and use. It is NOT weather sealed.

I go back and forth on weather sealing. My GX1 is not weather sealed either and I haven’t had any problems. My Canon 5D Mark III bodies are weather sealed and they’ve been in the shop for moisture issues. So weather sealing isn’t the be all and end all it’s supposed to be. Still, I wish it was.

I’ve had the E-P5 for almost two months and used it almost every day in that time.

The more I use it, the more I like it. Image quality is better than the GX-1 (IMO). I find myself using this a lot more than I used my GX-1. Occasionally with the GX-1, I would be editing and hit a selection of photos with blown highlights or excessive noise and say to myself, “should have used the 5D Mark III for these.” That hasn’t happened with the E-P5. In fact, I’ve used the E-P5 for more photos in the last two months than I have my 5D Mark III bodies.

The shutter sound is very, very quiet. Most times people don’t know you’re making pictures when you use this camera.

High ISO quality is much better than the GX-1. I have no problem going to ISO1600 and using a little noise reduction in Lightroom. I haven’t consciously gone above that, but I guess the next test is 3200.

The only thing about this camera that continues to frustrate me is battery life. Granted, I’m comparing it to the 5D Mark III, but battery life from the E-P5 is pretty abysmal.

I get about 350-400 exposures off a battery. I used it yesterday to photograph a Buddhist ceremony in Bangkok. I worked the event for four hours, made about 500 frames and used the wifi to send photos to my iPhone. I used the camera with the VF4 but did not use the flash. No video, stills only. Went through 1.5 batteries. The first battery was completely dead well before I finished and the second was about half exhausted by the time I wrapped it up. If you travel with this camera you’ll need lots of batteries. Which is a bit of a shame because this is a brilliant travel camera.

Ha!  I've photographed that same exercise class.  Always cracks me up that it's right outside the food court of the supermarket.

The Olympus Viewer software re-creates the camera's JPEG engine, meaning you can still experiment with Olympus JPEGs while still shooting RAW.

Yes. And it’s great. I love shooting monochrome - the VF4 shows me the B&W image. It was a little disconcerting the first time I did it but now I really like. I don’t usually shoot JPEG, but when I do I always shoot RAW+JPEG.

Acrill wrote:

The Olympus Viewer software re-creates the camera's JPEG engine, meaning you can still experiment with Olympus JPEGs while still shooting RAW.