One Happy Amateur

This camera takes mostly great pictures. I get a ton of use out of the WiFi and I'm looking forward to learning to use features like the time lapse, live bulb, live composite, and better utilizing the focus peaking. I personally find the design very functional and exceptionally aesthetically pleasing, with the materials used resulting in a very solid feeling tool.

TLDR PROS

• When you take a picture properly the image captured is very rewarding

  Happy with this image! OOC JPEG - Olympus 25/1.8, Auto WB
  

• Twin-control dials great for controlling exposure; well placed & well weighted
• Touch screen combined with SCP and dials also nice to use
• Feels great in the hand
• Highly configurable
• Tons of features, including several I have yet to explore
• Very good size to performance ratio, especially upon considering lenses
• Reasonably priced

TLDR CONS

• Limited video capability
• Only 3-axis IS
• Not weather-sealed
• Battery life unimpressive
• Auto focus misses sometimes
  

  Missed auto-focus, one too-easy to-find example of several experiences
  

• Adobe slow to add RAW support to Lightroom

[About this reviewer: The E-M10 is an upgrade from an Olympus E-PL1 and Panasonic GF3 (rarely used). I've been seriously interested in photography as a hobby for about 18 months, and have closely followed many of the product releases in the last 9 months waiting for a camera that I felt would be a good fit for my budget and perceived needs.]

IMAGE CAPTURING

This isn't going to be a tour de force of the cameras technical capabilities, nor showcase pro-level photography skills that I haven't yet developed. What I hope to show here is the fun I'm having shooting with this camera.

17mm/1.8 : OOC JPEG (resized) Art Filter - Grainy Film

12mm/2.0 : OOC JPEG

15mm/8.0 (BCL) : OOC JPEG, on-camera flash

45mm/1.8 : OOC JPEG

25mm/1.8 : OOC JPEG, Color Creator

Olympus OM 50mm/1.4 @ 1.4 : OOC JPEG, Manual Focus with focus peaking

40-150mm @ 150mm : OOC JPEG at dusk, handheld [all these shots are handheld, worth emphasizing here]

14-42mm @ 42mm : OOC JPEG

If you see inadequacies in the images above, they are about 15 times as likely to be attributed to my lack of skill rather than technical failings of the camera. That being said, it is worth emphasizing that the camera does miss auto focus sometimes, including when the subject seems painfully obvious.

Your comfort level with the ISO noise and skill at minimizing it during your image processing is likely different than my own, but I feel like the deer in the cemetery above demonstrate an acceptable trade-off in low-light image capture at ISO 5000.

Currently, I'm really enjoying the 17mm/1.8 at ~5.6/6.3 with either the Grainy Film filter or in monochrome. Color Creator can produce stunning results, but isn't terribly intuitive to use, especially if you're trying to "develop" a RAW image to taste. I didn't have a good example (didn't want to post a selfie) for the e-Portrait, but I have found it a useful way to smooth skin tones easily. The integrated flash is adequate but not exceptional. Several other capture features--time lapse, live bulb, and live composite--I have yet to try at all.

BUILD & HANDLING

I'm exceptionally pleased with the look, feel, and functionality of the camera. The viewfinder and LCD are both crisp, responsive, and accurate ways to both capture and review images. Configuring the buttons and dials is reasonably easy to accomplish, mostly a challenge only in the wide variety of commands that can be assigned. I can certainly see the argument to be made for two additional lens-adjacent function buttons for easier access than the two optional reconfigurable direction arrows, but I think I'll eventually settle in to settings that make sense for my shooting style.

Prior to shooting with the camera I was a bit disappointed with the exclusion of the 2x2 lever found on the E-M1 and E-P5. In practice I find that changing white balance and ISO isn't something I often need to do with the camera to my eye, and is easily enough accomplished via the Super Control Panel; including, occasionally, with the camera still held to my eye.

I feel the main control dials are very satisfying to use and am perfectly happy with the placement and resistance of each. I would not have minded a locking mechanism on the mode dial, however, as I have found that the few times I pocketed and retrieved the camera that dial was as likely as not to have shifted in the process. Turning the camera on to unexpectedly find myself shooting in iAuto or similar was a bit unsettling! Shutter noise is also very acceptable, to my ear quieter than the E-PL1.

Build quality appears to be very high, as tested with my dropping the camera a couple of times so far. Low-lights include the time it slipped from my grasp before rolling down about 5 feet of muddy embankment, being in the waist height camera bag (Lowepro Nova Sport 7L AW) when I slipped on ice over an asphalt path falling right on my behind with the bag landing next to/behind me, and a more recent comparatively gentle drop straight onto slightly damp earth when my Chinese eBay sourced Blackrapid knock-off decided to let the strap slip through the buckle. One thing that is a bit disappointing is the ease with which the eye cup surrounding the viewfinder can be removed. With my selection of lenses I've never considered the camera particularly pocket-able, but in my attempts anyways I've found the eye cup very often tries to jump ship. It has also happened one or two other times, but not so much as to be a major annoyance.

One thing that was a bit unsettling at first, but that I have adapted to is the slight "ocean" noise made by the image stabilization. Some other first-blush and subsequent annoyances include a slightly tight lens mount (never so bad I thought about returning the camera) and noticeable sensation that the image sensor moves when the camera is powered off. None of these things are personally at all offensive, but are worth mentioning in that others may find them unsettling or entirely unacceptable.

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS

Possibly via firmware:

• Color (red/blue/green/magenta, something not black/white) focus peaking
• Better integration of focus assist & focus peaking with manual focus lenses, esp. the clutch focus native lenses
• Tethered WiFi shooting
• Electronic shutter
• 24p/25p video (I have a videographer friend who might try to steal my camera, though...)

For mark ii OM-Ds (either the successor of this camera or of the E-M5):

• Front mount function buttons as seen on the E-M1
• Locking mode dial

This is my first product review at DPReview and is largely a tailored version of a review I posted at Amazon; I've tried to minimize talk about the comparative specifications and focus on my experiences and results using this camera. Apologies if I missed the mark. If the systems supports it, I may also add further to this review in the future.

Please take a moment to let me know if you found this review useful, by clicking "Like" or leaving me a comment. Thanks!

Thanks! I was riding behind my niece in a vehicle and had been grabbing some snapshots of nice smiles a few minutes earlier when the light shifted into "dramatic shadows" mode and I knew I had to capture another frame or two.

Appreciate all the anonymous likes as well, nice to know folks are reading this, and relieved no one is upset at my docking a 1/2 star over the focus and battery life.