Olympus E-PL5 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 14-42mm Lens (Black)

I'm a longtime point and shoot user upgrading for the first time with this camera. I bought it with the Panasonic LUMIX G 20mm f/1.7 Pancake Lens and have been pretty happy with the purchase so far. My first impressions are below. Note that I'm not a pro photographer. Things I like: - Image quality is great. Despite some of the features I don't like about this camera, this was the single strength that convinced me to keep it. - Great color reproduction. Colors are warm and vivid without being over-saturated. - Super easy menu system. I picked up on the basic navigation quickly without opening the manual. - Pretty fast shooting. I love using the touch screen focus shooting. - The body is fairly compact for a camera this high quality. I wanted something I could fit in a relatively small purse and tote around easily on trips. Things I don't like: - Less than optimal way of manually adjusting aperture, shutter speed, and exposure. I have to click the up/down or left/right button once just to get into the "edit" mode and then again to actually change the setting. The process feels amateurish like the designers didn't fully think this through. On the plus side, there are customizable buttons on this camera so I can choose to map aperture or shutter speed to them and avoid the two-step clicking. - The flip out LCD is a bit awkward to flip out. It takes multiple steps and more force than you'd expect to get it out (just watch any youtube video on this). Also, the screen is thick and adds a lot of bulk to an otherwise slim body. I almost think it would be a better camera without it. - Is it really too much to ask in this day in age for my camera to be wifi enabled and play nice with my other electronic devices? For those of you who are looking forward to the wifi enabled memory card, you'll have to keep in mind the card doesn't come in the box. You have to get it through a mail in rebate and wait 8-10 weeks. The other mirrorless camera I was seriously considering was the Sony NEX 5R. While that camera had many more bells and whistles, I ultimately chose the Olympus for two main reasons. (1) Better lens selection. Yes, Sony will make more lenses eventually. But the NEX line has been around for years now and their Marketing department is probably going through some extreme verbal gymnastics convincing people to keep waiting. (2) Despite the smaller sensor on the Olympus, a number of reviews I found said the image quality is only slightly better on the NEX. Overall, I'm really happy with the Olympus and can't wait to take some amazing pictures with it.

Camera is defective. Screen is upside down and will not rotate with position of the camera. Also, this is an Olympus Pen E-PL5. The camera came in a box labeled for the E-PL8 and with the E-PL8 owners manual. Real helpful..

Note: This is my first "serious" camera, I am upgrading from a 6 year old point and shoot camera that is worse than what smartphones are capable of now. I have been following the rumor mill and researching the bleeding edge of all compact cameras for the past 6 months, I had no desire to buy an older camera and would probably be considered an early adopter when it comes to all electronics. Just got the E-PL5 yesterday, ordered it as soon as it was available on Amazon for the "normal" price not the marked up price it was at initially, along with the kit 14-42mm lens, the Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f/1.8 Lens and the Olympus FL-300R External Flash. These are my early first impressions. Pros: - Excellent shooting menu system once you enable the "Super Control Panel" from within the settings. It is mentioned how to use it in the manual but not how to enable it, with some help from Google I was able to enable it. Enabling the Super Control Panel allows you to overlay ALL of your shooting settings while in a shooting mode with the press of the "OK" button, you can then select and edit any of these settings. - Customizable software. Can disable, enable and reassign almost every button and function. - Very well built camera body, feels solid in the hand. The tilt screen and the hinges are very well constructed. I also like the feel of the shutter button and the fact that it is separate from the on/off button. - Combination of this camera, the included hot shoe flash and the external FL-300R flash (sold separately) provides a very inexpensive multi flash solution that is extremely simple to use. - Good selection of compatible lenses. The combination of this camera body and the Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f/1.8 Lens was a major selling point for me. Shooting feels instant, pictures, even in low light, are very sharp. - The touch screen is very responsive, touch to focus, touch to focus/shoot modes work great. Cons: - The kit 14-42mm lens all-around performance is terrible when compared to the Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f/1.8 Lens (sold separately). I realize the 45mm is a lot of additional money, but I would not recommend buying this camera if all you plan to use is the kit lens. - This one is obvious, no built in flash. The included hot shoe flash works fine, but the overall package would be a lot more streamlined if the flash was built into the camera. - The touch screen is smaller than I was expecting. When shooting 4:3 the black space on the 16:9 screen is still used to display your shooting settings, but the overall size of the screen is still very small. - Included charger and charge cable is very large. For a package that has a main selling point of portability the size of these included accessories makes no sense. A simple flip out plug wall charger without a cable required would be great. Conclusion: Love this camera, exceeded my expectations in every aspect. Update 2012-11-23: Bought this camera from Amazon on 2012-11-01 for $699, it is now already $599! That is very annoying... why such a sudden significant price drop!?

So far I'm very happy with this camera. It's incredibly small, and takes amazing pictures for its size. The kit lens is better than most kit lenses, both in my own experience and according to professional reviews I've read. It's much smaller than I expected, but feels substantial. I can't believe how light the lens is, in particularly, even though it takes good shots. Alternatives I considered: Sony NEX-5R / NEX-6, Panasonic DMC-G5 / GX1 My favorite things about this camera: - Great picture quality: tack sharp, great color, properly exposed, correct white balance, blurred backgrounds - Fast auto-focus, and it usually picks the right focus point - Low light performance. I hate using a flash, so the fact that there's not a built-in flash doesn't bother me. Pictures taken at ISO1600 and 3200 look great, who needs a flash? - Tiltable, capacitive, responsive touch screen. It's so nice to be able to take pictures from above or below. - Touch to focus - compact size and light weight - in-body image stabilization (IBIS), great, though not the fantastic 5-axis version on the E-M5. - Built-in art filters, I especially like the Pinhole and Diorama (tilt-shift) effects - Surprisingly comfortable to hold, despite its diminutive size - good thumb grip, included front hand grip (though it could be meatier) I'm docking a star for the following reasons: - No in-camera HDR processing. It can do HDR *bracketing*, but then you have to buy software to merge them later (included software Olympus Viewer 2 does not). - Panorama feature is horrible. All it does is lock the exposure setting, and displays two white boxes on the screen to give you an idea approximately how to compose one shot to the next. 10 year old digital P&S cameras I've used do this better, by at least showing you a "ghost" of the last image. Also, you again need to post-process to stitch the pictures together (no in-camera processing). At least the included Olympus Viewer 2 application does the stitching. - Monster of a battery charger, with a great long AC cord. I MUCH prefer the more compact Canon chargers that have flip-out AC prongs, so much easier to carry. So far I haven't found a good aftermarket alternative - there are some out there, but they are cheap made-in-China junk that I'm afraid will burn my house down. - Over-priced OEM accessories. Remote cable release: 40 bucks, viewfinder: 180 or 250, wide-angle converter: 100, etc. I hate the japanese camera cartel, they don't let sellers set the price they want to charge. There's some competition with lenses at least, but not much... their prices are pretty fixed too. My previous camera was a Rebel XT - I don't miss it one bit, it's a dinosaur by comparison!

The camera takes great pictures but whenever I recorded videos, there was this rattle sounds that annoy me. I ended up returning the camera.

The camera came with a damaged sd card. I tried several I know were working. It would take two or three pictures then I would get the error message. I considered getting another one, but I didn't care for several things about this camera. I wanted basically a high end point and shoot as opposed to a DSLR, but even on automatic I had to adjust the color balance. I also didn't care for the flash being separate, it sort of again adds extra work. In addition, I found the button placements clunky and the menu to be confusing instead of intuitive. I also, at this price point, would wish for a view finder option instead of a screen, especially for sunny days. I have a high end DSLR that is actually easier to use. I am still a fan of my olympus TG3, but I'm still looking for that in between camera that isn't as heavy or expensive. The few pictures I got out of it were actually very good. But I'm going to keep looking.

I must say that this camera is amazing. I have been using a Nikon D7000 before this but I decided to reduce weight and went with the E-PL5, and I am not missing the D7000 at all. I used to find myself ditching the big chunky D7000 in most situations and always carrying around a pocketable point and shoot, unless I was going somewhere with breathtaking scenery. So this camera will actually replace two previous cameras I own (D7000 and my small point and shoot). From what I have seen, this camera shoots images with very comparable quality to mid range DSLRs such as the one I had. The size and features of this thing are right on. The touch screen auto focus is a great feature. The camera does a really great job in low light settings. You can shoot with ISOs up to 3200 and still come out with very decent looking photographs. One thing I must point out though, if you are going to shoot in JPEG, make sure to switch to the Large FINE Quality JPEG setting when you get the camera. I don't know why on earth Olympus did this, but the default setting is Large NORMAL Quality JPEG. I have used the 14-42mm II and 40-150mm R lenses with this camera and they are very good and sharp lenses, but the camera really excels with the amazing prime line up of lenses that Olympus and Panasonic offers. The image quality with these prime lenses are just amazing coming out of such a small body. I also have the 15mm Body Cap lens which is fun to use and makes the camera completely pocketable (which I will use for backpacking trips where I need to shave down on weight). Although this lens is a little soft around the edges, the image quality that it produced was surprisingly much better then I expected (similar quality to mid-to-high range point and shoots). For the attention grabbers out there, I have also had several people that have seen me take off the 15mm Body Cap lens and put on the 40-150mm for close ups and were so impressed that I was able to do that with such a small camera. I was thinking between this and the Flagship OM-D. I am glad I decided to go with the E-PL5. I cannot justify the increased size/weight, and the price difference for getting a slightly better image stabilization system, weather-proofness, and a built in view finder. I actually like the option of being able to stick an external view finder on a very bright sunny day, and not having the carry it around when in low light. Just recently there have been direct comparisons of image quality, noise, and dynamic range between the E-PL5 and OM-D and the results so far, to everyones surprise, show that the E-PL5 actually excels slightly in all three categories (which is making the OM-D owners very angry). The explanation for this seems to be that the E-PL5 does not have a low-pass Filter (AA filter). So all in all, you would be paying double the price of the E-PL5 to get the OM-D for some features that do not make the image quality better which in my opinion is not worth it. If you are thinking of getting a mid-range DSLR and/or high range point and shoot, then you should seriously consider this camera. Most importantly for me, my neck/shoulder does not hurt anymore without the expense of image quality after carrying this camera around all day.

LCD screen does not work!

Great Camera