Olympus E-PL5 16MP Mirrorless Digital Camera with 3-Inch LCD, Body Only (Black)

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..

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.

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

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.

Overall, this camera is pretty good package. I have EPL5 with Zuiko 12mm f2.0 for everyday shooting and Zuiko 45mm f 1.8 sometimes (amazingly sharp lens, best pictures it takes on ELP5). Few thoughts and why i'm keeping this camera. 1) small camera, i can put it in my jacket's pocket. 2) excellent low light camera. I take a lot of indoor pictures of my family and with 12mm and 45mm, there is no need to flash most of the times + images are great. 3) Image stabilization is good. not excellent like OMD-E5 but still better than nothing (my D300). it actually takes very few blurry pictures in low light conditions, mainly due to person in motion rather than your hand shaking. 4) Amazing pictures with 45mm f 1.8,. The image quality just sold me. I never got this good sharper and detailed image quality with nikon D300 with 50mm f1.8. I'm not a pro, I wanted good image quality so opted for DSLR, but this gives you DSLR quality images or better than my D300 in my opinion. 5) Very wide and fast focusing with 12mm for videos. i like to take videos too and this camera takes good 1080p video. I do see a bit of pixelization in high motion mov. AVI is just 720p and is much smoother quality but larger file. Overall, I'm not blown away by video but not disappointed either. I was disappointed with OMD-E5's focusing so i returned it for EPL5. I'm not sure why focusing is slower OMD-E5 otherwise OMD beats EPL5 hands down. 6) Has one dial for changing shooting modes. I prefer atleast two to change aperature or shutter speed faster. You can still do it but it's a 2 step process in EPL5. 7) tough screen to take a snap is useful at times. you can pick the point where you want to focus and take a picture. I found it useful than replying on camera at times. 8) battery is great. I took 387 pictures and dozen of movie. Camera still has plenty of battery. Battery charger is old school chord & it sucks but not a big deal. 9) Flash attachment is ok, not great. It's not too powerful and you cannot bounce. With f2.0 and f 1.8 i haven't taken too many pics with flash, since room light is enough. i might buy external flash later on. 10) Tilt able screen is good if you wan to bring the camera down to a kid's level and bring the screen at 90 degree to take a shots. I use it a lot. 11) There are bunch of built in effect. I like some of them but these are personal choice. 12) I'm just taking Jpegs since RAW shows as not supported in Aperature. Overall, I'm very satisfied with this camera and considering selling my D300.

As a long time SLR/DSLR user, I was ready for a down-size. Boy, is this a downsize! Be ready, if you're going to use your old SLR lenses with this unit (and the necessary adapter), the lens is much bigger than the camera! Functionally, I love this camera, but you do loose some stability in lieu of portability. Great build quality and actually has more features than my old E510. UPDATE 11-16-13: Just tried turning on my camera and got a pink and yellow pixelated screen for 30 seconds then it died. Will not power on with fresh batteries. Meaning: It will go back to Olympus under warranty and when it is returned it will go on eBay along with the lenses, batteries, and case. Once bit, twice shy. I think I'm going back to traditional DSLR again, too. UPDATE 7-2014: 6 months after factor repair, noticed the camera would completely discharge the battery overnight or w/in 48 hrs even with a fully charged battery. Batteries will last a full day in use, but once camera is shut off, they're gonners over night. Reset to factory defaults, too. Tried new Olympus batteries, new charger, same issue. Decided to call it in since I just had it repaired and Olympus wants to charge me for the eval and repair, despite that this is OBVIOUSLY a defective camera body. Screw that. So, now I have a defective camera body and $1,500+ in lenses. Great. Will sell the lenses and use the body as a paper weight I guess. Sorry Olympus, you've officially lost me as a customer.

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.

Pros: Touchscreen interface. Tons of customization options. Great lens selection. Decent image quality. Cons: Build quality is sub-par. Subjective, but the camera is quite ugly. Image quality is a bit disappointing (it's good, but not as good as reviews lead you to believe). LCD is horrible. Slow start-up.