Olympus E-5

Pros

Takes sharp photos in good light. Splashproof and dustproof. Crisp, articulating LCD. In-camera color effects and HDR. Excellent connectivity options.

Cons

Bulky and heavy. Underwhelming low-light performance. Video capture is limited to 720p30. Slow autofocus during Live View shooting. Audible lens noise during video recording.

Bottom Line

The splashproof, dustproof Olympus E-5 is a good option if you shoot photos and video in unfriendly environments, but with middling low-light performance and limited video-capture options it’s not the best D-SLR you can buy for the money.

The splashproof, dustproof Olympus E-5 is a fun, fast, and tough digital camera. This 12.3-megapixel D-SLR takes sharp photos in good lighting conditions, and there are a number of in-camera color effects that can be added on the fly.

Design

Like most D-SLRs, the E-5 isn’t exactly compact—it weighs a seriously hefty 1.97 pounds and measures a considerable 4.6 by 5.6 by 2.9 inches (HWD). It’s built for speedy shooting, though: You’ll find dedicated buttons to toggle shooting modes, white balance, autofocus, Live View, video capture, ISO (International Standards Organization) sensitivity and more, providing quick access to features that might otherwise require you to dig through menus. Two scroll dials—one in the front for your index finger and one in the back for your thumb—let you make quick adjustments without taking your eye off the viewfinder.

When it’s combined with a weatherproof lens (Olympus makes several), the E-5 is one tough camera. (The magnesium-alloy camera body withstood bumps, bangs, and liberal splashing in my tests.)

The 3-inch LCD is packed with 920,000 dots, so it’s as large and as sharp as most of the cameras in its price range. The display is mounted on an articulating arm, which can be pulled out and spun around up to 270 degrees. If you shoot in Live View mode (using the LCD as a viewfinder), you can hold the camera above or below your head, and angle the LCD—which is helpful for shooting at awkward angles and heights. Like most traditional D-SLRs, though, when you’re shooting in Live View mode, the E-5 bypasses the rapid phase detection autofocus system. It instead uses the slower contrast measurement autofocus, so Live View shooting is much slower than if you use the optical viewfinder. Sony is the only manufacturer to make fast D-SLRs, like Sony Alpha a550, with articulating displays and fast phase detection autofocus in Live View.

The user interface on the E-5 isn’t anything special, but it’s simple and offers some basic features for enhancing your photos. There are 10 integrated filters including Pinhole, Film Grain, Gentle Sepia, and others. The E-5 also has an HDR (high-dynamic range) setting, which takes overexposed and under-exposed images of the same subject and merges them into one photo, typically improving the lighting and exposure of the shot.

Performance

The E-5 is very speedy, but there are even faster models available at this price range. The camera can power on and shoot in an average of 1.6 seconds, and once it’s powered up, it can capture up to five images per second with virtually no shutter lag. The Canon EOS 7D and Nikon D300s, though, both offer 8 frames per second (fps) shooting.

In the PC Labs we use Imatest to collect objective information about image quality. At the cleanest ISO sensitivity (ISO 100), the E-5 offered a center-weighted average of 2,018 lines per picture height—an excellent score. The Canon 7D averaged 1,999 lines, and the Nikon D300s was very soft at just 1,480 lines. In good light (with low ISO sensitivities), the Olympus E-5 delivers extremely sharp photos.

Under poor lighting conditions (which require high ISOs), results are less impressive. If Imatest detects more than 1.5 percent noise, the image will appear grainy. The Canon 7D and Nikon D300s can produce usable images up to and including ISO 3200, but the E-5 can’t climb that high: At ISO 3200 it produces images with more than 1.5 percent noise. Even less expensive cameras, like the Editors’ Choice Canon EOS Rebel T2i, can go to ISO 3200 and keep noise under 1.5 percent. That means that in low-light situations, the E-5 won’t perform especially well.

And underwhelming low-light score is likely due to the fact that the E-5’s image sensor is not as large as D-SLR competitors from Nikon, Olympus, Sony and Pentax. The E-5’s Four Thirds image sensor measures 17.3 by 13mm (225mm²), whereas “APS-C” sensors found in most D-SLRs measure 23.6 by 15.7 (370mm²), and are roughly 64 percent larger.

Video recorded with the E-5 looks great, and shooting is a lot of fun because you can apply the in-camera filters to your videos. You can even shoot in manual mode and control the level of blur (shutter speed) or depth of field (aperture). One shortcoming: You can’t control the size of the video or the frame rate—the only option is 720p at 30 frames per second. The less-expensive Canon T2i offers a choice of 720p at 60 fps, or 1080p at 24 or 30 fps.

The video recording experience has the same limitations as with most traditional D-SLRs—the camera can’t continuously autofocus (so tracking faces isn’t possible); and if you use the built-in microphone, you’ll capture noise from the lens every time you refocus (unless you focus manually). You can avoid the noise by using an external microphone in the camera’s 1/8th–inch input jack.

The E-5 gets an easy “A” for connectivity—all of its ports are industry standards so you shouldn’t have trouble finding inexpensive replacement cables. There’s a mini-USB port for connecting to your computer and mini-HDMI for playback on HDTVs. You also get memory slots for CF cards or SDXC cards. (Keep in mind, though, if you use SDHC cards you’ll want fast ones—at least class 6—to capture video or shoot still at high speeds.)

Overall, the Olympus E-5 is a good choice if you need manual shooting in environments that are moist, wet, sandy, or just generally hostile for electronics. The weather-sealed body, when outfitted with an optional weather-sealed lens will stand up to the elements better than a traditional D-SLR. But if you don’t need that level of heavy-duty protection, then the Canon Rebel EOS 7D and the Nikon D300s deliver better performance at around the same price or less.