Alex Mustard reviews Olympus OM-D E-M5

by Alex Mustard Friday, June 1st, 2012

Field Review. Olympus OM-D E-M5. By Alex Mustard.

1. INTRODUCTION.

Most of my camera reviews for Wetpixel come from the upper echelons of the Nikon SLR range, so you are probably wondering why I am reviewing Olympus’s new OM-D E-M5? Simply because if it can realize its potential underwater it could be one of the most important underwater cameras released for several years. And not just for existing Micro Four Thirds aficionados. This is camera that we should all know about, whether we currently shoot Micro Four Thirds, a compact or an SLR.

The Olympus OM-D E-M5 in the Olympus housing in Xlendi, Gozo, Malta.

The E-M5 (I’ll use its short name from now on) is a Micro Four Thirds camera (which I’ll also shorten to M43), a mirror-less, lens and sensor format developed jointly by Olympus and Panasonic. Since its launch, M43 has promised quality in a smaller package. The cameras are good, the lens choice wide, but while delivering impressive images, for me the cameras have plugged the gap between compacts and SLRs, without really troubling the latter. This hasn’t stopped them selling, in fact their small size and light weight has made them particularly attractive and popular for underwater photography. But I am interested to know if the E-M5 finally makes M43 a no compromise alternative to a SLR.

The Micro Four Third (M43) system offers high quality lenses from fisheye to macro to cover pretty much all options for underwater photography. This cuttlefish was shot with 8mm fisheye. Even more lenses can be added with adaptors.

On paper the E-M5 brings plenty of new tech to M43, including format leading dynamic range, ISO performance, autofocus, image stabilisation and an electronic viewfinder. But is this enough to be a “no buts” alternative to an SLR for serious underwater photography. I’ve travelled to the Mediterranean diving mecca of Malta, Gozo and Comino to find out.

The E-M5 should excel at low light shooting for three reasons. First it has excellent ISO performance, second M43 lenses need to be stopped down less than equivalent angle of coverage lenses from other formats to give good depth of field and third in-body image stabilization works with all lenses. Taken at ISO 800, f/5.0 @ 1/15th.

From its specs the E-M5 is a very impressive looking camera for underwater photography. It should clear be an upgrade for compact and existing M43 users, but I also want to evaluate it from the perspective of a SLR shooter.

As always with my reviews on Wetpixel I strongly encourage comments and opinions. Please share your thoughts below as they benefit all readers.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This review event was organized by Pete Bullen of Oceanfoto.co.uk. Pete offers photographer specific coaching and guiding in Gozo. The good news is that he will be keeping these cameras on for anyone to do this review for themselves, while diving with him in Gozo. It is a perfect try before you buy opportunity, although Pete doesn’t sell the cameras himself.

Thank you to Olympus (UK, Europe and Japan) for making this event possible and to Malta Tourism for their support.

We stayed at the Ulysses Hotel in the heart of the diving hotspot of Xlendi in Gozo, and dived with the great gang at Moby Dives and made boat dives with Pete Allday of Ocean Dreams. Thank you also to Kristina Hartwig for modeling for me, especially for the repetitive flashes for the ISO test shots. Finally thanks to Nige, Rob and Mario for making it such an enjoyable trip.

Hi, Just a question I have an olympus omd em5 but when I want to use mode M the exposition adjust itself, I can adjust speed and focus but no the exposition. Is it possible to change this problem?

Posted by sandrine on 2016-04-06 18:32:01 Scubysnaps: Alex is used to life at the top of the food chain but my take was that the OM-D is as fast as could be reasonably expected. Few of the Gozitan dives with it were undertaken with the fast MSC lenses - like any SLR folk we wanted to try the extremes. Mostly we used the Panasonic 8mm fisheye and 45mm macro. Excellent optically but not famously fast. The D90 is one of the few Nikons I've used much so this isn't completely without a point of reference :) Like the Olympus SLRs I use a lot of the performance depends on the lens. I didn't find the D90 remarkably fast but the only ultrasonic lens I tried was the Sigma 150mm macro. Using the OMD since with the 12-50 and 14-42 I'd say it was very fast but that's not to say it works in quite the same way as an SLR. I know I can place the AF target on my E420 on the eye of a mysid or rhinophore of a nudi but the OM-D has a focus box that looks for image detail within 'video' bounded by the box and has no qualms at all in flitting from foreground to background in no time flat in a way that few SLRs can. I'd suggest that it doesn't offer/suffer from the limited/precise scope of SLR AF and that can be a strength and weakness. To make the most of it you need to plant the AF area well. I've been driven around the countryside shooting oncoming cars with it (which it'll do in SAF or CAF as well as being able to track objects around the whole screen) from an intial lock. So there's potential there for it to do great things but I've yet to try to pick a single fish out of a shoal. I think the water would need to be very clear and my reflexes superhuman! Only dives will tell how all the configurations work out but I was mightily impressed by the combination of the 12-50mm in macro mode and an Inon 165 - the most rapid macro setup I've tried. When the 60mm lens arrives it will be quite an interesting comparison.
Posted by ReallyMadRob on 2012-07-29 14:15:38 Thanks for the review Alex, and Pete for arranging it, unsure about the auto focus abilities on fast subjects, what would they be like compared to my D90?
Posted by Scubysnaps on 2012-07-19 08:56:11 Just wanted to add a thank you to all those who have commented and shared knowledge, opinions and information. Greatly improves the amount of information available here to others.
Posted by Alex Mustard on 2012-06-12 07:37:53 To clarify the port question: (as far as possible) The port is (I'm 99.9% sure) an RDX port - so there's a choice there to start with. There's an adapter - which we had out in Gozo - to allow threaded Olympus ports to be fitted. The housing comes with a standard flat port which is functionally the same as that one the first 2 Pen housings and 'suits' the 14-42mm and 9-18mm lenses. They don't say but it's a good fit of the 12-50mm as well and I'm just working on a zoom ring for that. I'd be surprised if an adapter back to Pen ports doesn't appear quite soon :-) I'm still not sure what would account for the 'pre flash delay', I didn't suffer it but we were mixing and matching strobes and modes at a furious rate :-) I wanted to factory reset the bodies before we started but time didn't allow that. I can say that I dived with it in Cornwall yesterday using the 12-50mm in macro mode along side a single RC protocol TTL strobe and suffered no such delay. Rob P.S. The strobe problems mentioned were down to a duff batch of brand new AA rechargeables - undone by the best of intentions. So it was a shame we weren't able to demo the Oly strobes fondness for macro.
Posted by ReallyMadRob on 2012-06-12 04:45:48 How disappointing the PEN lens ports don't fit out of the box. And I just bought one hoping to use it in the future for the E-M5.
Posted by Jak Crow on 2012-06-12 03:32:05 Dynamic range on the E-M5 far exceeds that available on APS-C DSLRs like the Canon 7D. In a single image, one can pull large amounts of detail from both the highlights and shadows. For an example see: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1041&message=41718774 A raw image can be downloaded for those interested in investigating the DR themselves.
Posted by coroander on 2012-06-11 00:47:58 Alex, thanks for the acknowledgement.It was a pleasure having you and the rest of the gang aboard. Hope to see you again sometime
Posted by Ocean Dreams on 2012-06-05 07:23:36 @ Klaus - thanks for the suggestion on the shooting delay with TTL. We've discussed it a bit more in the forum and what we want to reduce is the delay for a pre-focused shot while still using TTL. Your suggestion might be the answer. Discussion here: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46536&st=31 Alex
Posted by Alex Mustard on 2012-06-03 04:25:34 It's a super camera and it's lesser siblings are pretty good too, That shot of the cuttlefish, as Alex has pointed out was taken on the Pen Mini, the E-PM1, what Alex didn't say was that he took it within the first 20 minutes of picking up the camera for the 1st time. He is a fantastic photographer too. Thanks for coming out Alex. :)
Posted by PeeBee on 2012-06-03 01:48:44 Alex, you mentioned "One big frustration with the flash system is TTL lag. The E-M5 does not have shutter lag, but when used in TTL mode there is a pre-flash lag before the photo is taken. On manual flash there is no noticeable delay." Might it be that you had "Anti-Shock" activated in the release options? In case it is set to ½sec in the E-menu, the E-M5 will first pre-flash, wait half a second, then fire the main flash. In manual mode there is no pre-flash, so the ½sec delay is not so evident.
Posted by KlausCR on 2012-06-02 17:57:58 Thanks again for directing this review towards DSLR shooters as well as compact and M43 shooters. I have been shooting the E-M5 out of the water since it arrived and no longer look at the image quality as being from a small sensor and just as a great image machine. This system has great glass for U/W use and new quality lenses like the just announced Panasonic 12-35 F/2.8 X keep coming. Phil Rudin
Posted by Phil Rudin on 2012-06-02 11:09:56 I went on this trip with an open mind having never shot with a M43 camera before, to say I'm impressed with these little cameras is an understatement, Alex has done them the justice they deserve in this review. Nice job Doctore!!
Posted by Nige Wade on 2012-06-02 05:50:59 I can't give you a 100% answer on the ports - as I no longer have the housing in front of me. But my best guess is no. We weren't able to use the mini-domes we had (which I guess were PEN fit). The dome we used was an Olympus one - and was old - presumably from an older Oly SLR housing - but fitted. I suspect that someone will make a port adaptor given the number of PEN users who will fancy upgrading to this camera. Sterling, thanks. I look forward to hearing what you think. I was very impressed. But didn't want to write a review totally gushing with praise because I was writing for current SLR users and felt it important to comment on both the areas it is ahead of an SLR and behind.
Posted by Alex Mustard on 2012-06-02 02:29:42 Alex, Could you answer if the PT-EP08 housing will accept the same ports from the prior PEN housings or third party ports (Zen, Athena, Precision) already in production or did Olympus use another style port connection as rumored? Thank you for the great review
Posted by devildiver on 2012-06-01 17:57:48 Awesome review, Alex. Thanks for posting. I am really excited about this camera. It's good to hear that the performance lives up to its promise. I look forward to shooting it soon. Thanks for the in-depth first look.
Posted by Sterling Zumbrunn on 2012-06-01 15:39:27