The Beginning Of An Era – The Olympus E-5
In 2003, Olympus started the Four Thirds DSLR range with the introduction of the E-1. Since then, there were a lot of models that made their appearance but only a selected few rose to the occasion. In 2007, Olympus introduced the E-3 that was one of the greats; it was a big step forward that brought big improvements in all aspects. Now, in 2010, we get to see the latest addition to the Four Thirds DSLR range and it has the name of Olympus E-5.
Time passed and Olympus associated with Panasonic to create the Micro Four Thirds system and so introduced a new line of cameras. They state that this is not in direct competition with the Olympus E-5 and that it targets a different public.
The successor to the great E-3, the new E-5, is new benchmark in this series that will definitely find fans among professionals and semi professionals. With this DSLR camera, Olympus plans on winning a part of the market that is so highly debated amongst big names like Nikon and Canon. The E-5 has a lot of potential and Olympus has a experience in this field and so the results should be very good.
Olympus E-5 design
At first glance, the E-5 looks a lot like its predecessor and few things had changed when talking about the aspect. The front of the camera is the same and this is quite usual for DSLR cameras. It can be considered a pretty big camera in comparison with the competition and also a heavy one but it provides a perfect grip for tough situations. An interesting aspect and also a new feature on this camera is the built in flash that will soon catch your eye. Although most professional cameras don’t have this feature, Olympus has made it available on the new E-5 showing that this new camera is more for semi-professional photographers.
Olympus E-5
The back of the camera has suffered quite a few changes from the old model but the rotating display remained to please users even more and grew to a total dimension of 3 inches and a resolution of 920.000 dots. This makes some feature stand out even more like the Live View application that really complements that big high resolution display. Fans will quickly see that the large screen caused some buttons to be removed due to the lack of space or just moved to another part of camera still keeping them in reach.
Olympus E-5 has definitely evolved
The Olympus E-5 has definitely evolved in the three years since the E-3 was introduced and old fans will surely recognize the old and appreciate the new. This new camera remains an evolution on many fronts but some accessories from the old E-3 will still fit it. Although there haven’t been many new features that can be considered ground breaking, the E-5 is a great DSLR camera for semi-professional photography that can easily satisfy a more advanced user.
Despite the high image resolution of competitive manufactures that can exceed 20 MP, Olympus has declared that the optimal amount is of 12 MP and has defended this argument several times. To use every pixel of the 12,3 MP available with the E-5, Olympus designed a new TruePic V+ processor. This uses advance algorithms to make sure that the results from the 12,3 MP resolution are perfect and that the amount of detail is as big as it can be. The E-3 proved to be very efficient despite the low MP count and so there is no reason to believe that its successor will let users down in that department.
Olympus E-5
As far as videos go, the E-5 supports 720p HD video and mono sound directly with the option to plug in a stereo microphone. Despite these small drawbacks, the camera has a lot of potential in the real world and many users took advantage of opportunity of filming with interchangeable lenses.
The Olympus E-5 is a very well done DSLR camera that can be trusted to work in any condition and offer the best results. While it does not rank to high when talking about HD videos or high ISO, it is a good functional camera that will satisfy old fans and win new ones as well.
