Olympus E-PL5 quick review 1/7/14

For my birthday, my wonderful wife bought me an Olympus E-PL5 to replace my aging Canon Digital Rebel. While it’s a bummer abandoning all my Canon lenses and accessories, I wanted a smaller setup without sacrificing image quality.

I had stopped bringing the Canon along with me on vacations because it was simply too heavy to carry around. While the newer Canon Rebels are smaller, they aren’t nearly as small as the Olympus E-PL5¹. When I have the E-PL5 hanging from the neck strap, I sometimes forget it’s even there.

Aside from the weight, the E-PL5 has a few other great features, including In-Body Image Stabilization, a tiltable touch screen², full control over aperture and shutter speed, and great looks³.

Seriously, I love the retro styling.

Most importantly, it takes great pictures right out of the box. Here are some unedited pics I’ve taken with it:

It’s not all good news. The E-PL5 is a bit on the pricey side. You can find similar Panasonic cameras⁴ for $100 or $200 less depending on sales. That’s good money you could use toward a lens. The menu system is not intuitive. If I pick up the camera after not using it for a few days, I always forget how to change the white balance settings⁵. There is no optical viewfinder or built-in flash⁶. Neither is a problem for me because the screen is great, and I avoid using the flash like the plague, but it could be a dealbreaker for some.

Overall, I’m comfortable recommending the Olympus E-PL5 on size and image quality alone. If you’re in the market for a good companion lens, I’ve enjoyed using the Panasonic 14mm pancake lens. It’s fast, sharp, and extremely small. Just what I needed to make my setup even smaller and lighter.