Sunday, May 15, 2011

Cost and Specification of Olympus E-5

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12.3 MP Four-Thirds DSLR camera

Solidly built, the E-5 has a good grip and feel, also borrows some electronic features from its smaller Micro Four Thirds brethren.

It delivers great image quality in good light, especially at high ISO settings. Images have good contrast, low noise and spot-on colour accuracy, with AWB up to the task under most conditions. Above ISO 800 however, sharpness and noise levels suffer in low light, and above ISO 1600, fine details suffer. Some highlight clipping also occurs in high-contrast scenes, avoidable if using RAW format. Default sharpness is a bit soft, however, this can be adjusted in the menu. Video quality (720p) is also good, with good sharpness and colour accuracy, fast AF, as no jerks.

Continuous drive is not up to the mark, with variable 5 fps not good enough. The AF system is very fast though.

Its 1620 mAh BLM-5 battery life is quite solid, rated to last up to 870 shots. The menus and control system are far from perfect, and much fewer options are available compared to other dSLRs in this price category.

At its price range, the Olympus E-5 has superior competition in the form of the Nikon D7000 and the Canon EOS 7D, which are more versatile cameras, but in terms of specifications, the E-5 is probably closer to the D300s and the Canon EOS 5OD. As for performance and price, the E-5 doesn’t compare well with its competitors, but is a solid upgrade from the Olympus E3 or E1, especially if you have a Zuiko Digital lens with you.