Olympus OM-D E-P5 arrived

[SmartWombat]

Battery is on charge.
Waiting for the yellow light to go out ...

Meanwhile looked at the 1/4" thick basic manual.
Discovered it is multilingual and only has 4 pages of instructions.

Insert battery here
Add lens here
Memory card goes here
Press this button for stills
Press this button for video
That's about it

Must put the full pdf manual onto my iPad.


It's small, and light.
Of course it arrived without the "free" grip - that takes 28 days (+ 14 for delivery) from Olympus. And without the extra "free" accessories for ordering it at the Focus on Imaging Show, who knows when they will arrive.
Patience will be exhausted long before they arrive
Actually patience was exhausted when I plugged the charger in

Flattened battery by trying a 9fps burst, it's faster than my Canons.
And so much lighter I think I can use it without wrecking my hand.

[Greg McCary]

I have been reading good things about the camera and no word when mine is coming. I read the dynamic range has made a big improvement. I certainly hope so. I have been missing those beautiful Olympus colors.

[SmartWombat]

Neat feature is the automatic VF/LCD switch disables the LCD before my nose hits it.
So I can't accidentally focus and shoot with my nose.

Did it accidentally with my finger and surprised myself.
Also pleasantly surprised to find sweep left/right works in image view.
Must be single touch because pinchtozoom doesn't work, it has a zoom slider.

ISO 25600 looks usable at web resolution with only two 14w fluorescent bulbs.

[Photo-John]

Sweet! Looking forward to your thoughts on the camera. I haven't had a chance to read any reviews yet but the headlines are all very positive. I should have one showing up for review this week. Unlike the pre-production camera I had for a few days before the announcement, I think I even get a battery this time

[armando_m]

...
So I can't accidentally focus and shoot with my nose.
....

LOL

congrats on the new camera

[SmartWombat]

I don't like the way the accessories don't arrive, I was relying on the grip to make it manageable.
In many ways I think the camera may be too small !
But I need to get out and practice with it before ALMS at Laguna Seca.

[SmartWombat]

OK
I said I'd go out and practice, I also read the manual (only comes as PDF).
The continuous AF doesn't work at the 9fps high speed, the focus is locked.
That isn't prominent in the literature, so 3.5fps with C-AF seems the best I can get.

First impression is great, the tilting LCD screen works well for low level shots.
Even with high speed update configured, it is slow in low light like all live EVF or LCD.
So night time endurance race shooting will be difficult.

I bought the body only, the first lens to hand in the camera bag happened to be the 14-42 kit lens from the E-P1.
The weather wasn't cooperating, as I was wandering around the garden the temperature dropped, the bees disappeared, and the rain came down. So there are only a few flat grey cloudy lit shots so far.

[SmartWombat]

There are a lot of Teeny Tiny buttons.
No bigger than [ ] that, really the play and fn1 buttons are not likely to be workable in gloves.
Ah and it's a capacitative touch screen, so that won't work in gloves either, not that you could see it under a gloved finger.

So it suits my fairly small hands quite nicely.
The thumb rest on the back is a great shape, really works well holding the camera with fingers on the front grip pad.
It has to work well, remember the back of my right hand was replaced.
So I think it's a very good result, I can shoot with this camera one handed with the 14-42 lens.

Hidden feature: SCP the Super Control Panel.
Not normally turned on, and with touch screen enabled a quick way to change settings.
Control Menu D | Control Settings | Live SCP ... turn it on.

Annoyance: the rubber cover over the USB socket
I was expecting another nice door like the SD card door, disappointing on an otherwise well engineered camera.

[SmartWombat]

Now with added Lightroom 4.1 RC 1 processing.

[Liz]

Looking good Paul! It's great that you feel comfortable with the ergonomics of the camera after all you have been through! It sure looks like an awesome camera.

Enjoy - I look forward to seeing more photos and comments as you use it. I will be away for the weekend with my "out-dated" E-P3.

Liz

[thinkcooper]

Congrats! Enjoy!