Best and worst things about upgrading from the E-P3 to the E-P5!

E-P5 on the top, E-P3 on the bottom.

The best... the tripod mounting hole is on the OTHER side of the lens than the battery compartment.  Now I can change batteries and flash cards without having to unscrew anything on most of my mounts.  Thank you thoughtful Olympus engineers!  Every time I pop in a new battery with the camera on a tripod or telescope mount makes me happy.

The worst... no replaceable front grip.  My cramped fingers curse you, lazy Olympus engineers!  Whoever decided it was just too much trouble to add the WiFi antenna and still keep the replaceable grip option needs to be forced to hold the E-P5 with a 75-300 on it with one hand all day for a month.

What are your gripes and cheers?

You might want to look at this.

iansmith wrote:

E-P5 on the top, E-P3 on the bottom.

The best... the tripod mounting hole is on the OTHER side of the lens than the battery compartment. Now I can change batteries and flash cards without having to unscrew anything on most of my mounts. Thank you thoughtful Olympus engineers! Every time I pop in a new battery with the camera on a tripod or telescope mount makes me happy.

The worst... no replaceable front grip. My cramped fingers curse you, lazy Olympus engineers! Whoever decided it was just too much trouble to add the WiFi antenna and still keep the replaceable grip option needs to be forced to hold the E-P5 with a 75-300 on it with one hand all day for a month.

Have you tried using your other hand on the lens itself? That might relieve part of the discomfort of using a largish lens on a Pen body.

What are your gripes and cheers?

For me (and I never bothered with add-on/secondary grips - see comment above) the improvement is just about everything from IQ, ISO Noise and control layout more than made up for the smaller basic grip on the camera. (Then again - I just sold the EP5 to get the EM10.....)

Steven Wandy wrote:

Have you tried using your other hand on the lens itself? That might relieve part of the discomfort of using a largish lens on a Pen body.

What are your gripes and cheers?

For me (and I never bothered with add-on/secondary grips - see comment above) the improvement is just about everything from IQ, ISO Noise and control layout more than made up for the smaller basic grip on the camera. (Then again - I just sold the EP5 to get the EM10.....)

It's not so much holding the camera up for a shot, I use two hands for that. It's carrying it around in one hand. With the extended grip on the E-P3 I could easily handhold it. With the smaller grip it cramps my fingers after a short while.

It's not a deal breaker but it is a significant amount of extra pain. I've got arthritis so I should probably invest in a wrist strap anyway, it's just sad the former grip worked so well and now it's gone.

assaft wrote:

You might want to look at this.

I have some of that stuff, and even after it dries it tends to crumble and rub off. That stuff would surely get into the lens and camera body. Plus as well as it would work as a grip, it sure is ugly as sin.

I'm waiting for someone to do a teardown on the camera.. maybe the grip can be replaced with something else. It certainly looks like it's not just glued on, and it fits over the case so would have to come off somehow. Goodbye warranty though.

The biggest problem going from E-P3 to E-P5 is new battery/charger and loss of ability to bounce built-in flash.

Agree with you on the grip

Both my EP3 and EPL5 have the large grip mounted; it's perfect

I lament the use of the thin grip on the EP5; why not sport the large grip on it and have an even larger builtin antenna?

Best:

newer and better sensor

1/8000 speed

most beautiful body (except for the grip)

Cheers