Birma wrote:Congrats on the M10 Henry. I was wondering if you may have been tempted by a M5 mk II.
I looked at the E-M5 II, but the new stuff in it is not of much interest to me. The E-M10 addresses most of the areas I hoped for improvement though. It is really an improved, more refined E-M5. So many of the little annoying things about the E-M5 have been improved or fixed in it. I made the following list of valued changes awhile back.
I have had my E-M5 since May 2012 and mostly have liked it. Much smaller and lighter for travel than the DSLRs that I used to use. It is very responsive like a DSLR and single AF is quick and reliable. There are several things that annoy me about it though and my month in Thailand that recently ended reminded me of those things all over.
The E-M10 also fixes several of the things I dislike about my E-M5. Here are some of the pluses compared to the E-M5:
- 0 second anti-shock setting
- MySets can be assigned to mode dial
- built-in flash (for a quick pop of outdoor fill flash)
- lower EVF housing for a more sleek, smoother top
- rear buttons have better feel and are slightly larger
- buttons just above the LCD are better placed and easier to press
- higher resolution rear LCD
After using my E-M5 for the last 33 months I have now had an E-M10 for a few weeks. After using it I am quite happy with it. It really does come across as a more refined E-M5 with many of the annoying things fixed or modified. It seems to be just as well made and sturdy as my E-M5. I use my left eye to the EVF and these days wear eyeglasses so keep that in mind with regards to some of my comments regarding ergonomics.
- Front and rear control wheels are a bit higher which makes them easier to get at.
- Front control wheel is a bit more forward and that makes it easier to use especially with the ECG-1 grip installed.
- Rear buttons are larger.
- Shutter button is larger.
- Buttons have much better tactile feel. The E-M5 buttons are mushy and sometimes you have to press them more than once to get them to work.
- The Fn1 and Play buttons are much easier to access and press. The thick E-M5 LCD and the location of those buttons made them very poor.
- EVF hump is not as tall and the hotshoe doesn't stick out much. The E-M5 hotshoe sticks out and has sharper edges. It would sometimes get caught on my clothes when I was quickly trying to get a shot.
- Built-in flash so don't have the tiny accessory E-M5 flash that resulted in 3 small plastic parts to take off, juggle, and keep track of in order to use. Also, very slow to get it installed or uninstalled because of all the parts. It would seem to me that the Olympus engineer who came up with that monstrosity did it while sitting in a quiet office, in a chair, with the camera on his desk. He obviously never tried to actually use it while standing on the street in a hot, humid, crowded, windy, raining place such as Saigon and trying to get the flash out of a pocket or camera bag and installed while also trying to not drop other things, keep your hat from flying off in the wind, not get jostled by people, and so on.
- Shutter sound is even quieter than the already quiet E-M5. I am using the 0-second AS setting so I don't know if that has something to do with it.
- With the better E-M10 control wheel positions (higher than the E-M5) the ECG-1 grip improves things a lot. Only cost $44. I had tried the HLD-6 grip that costs $300 on the E-M5 in 2012 and didn't like it. The top part was all I was interested in, but with the lower E-M5 control wheels, the front control wheel a bit further back, and the design of the HLD-6 I found that it was hard for my index finger to get at the rear control wheel while using the grip. I have to use my index finger instead of my thumb because I use my left eye and the E-M5 is so cramped up on that side. Never had to do that with any SLRs/DSLRs over the years. With the E-M10 and ECG-1 though there are no problems.
- Eyecup is slightly better shaped to keep extraneous light out.
- The tripod socket is centered under the lens, but the E-M5 is offset. I don't care about this, but some people prefer a centered tripod socket.
- The E-M10 BLS-5 battery charger is a bit smaller than the E-M5 BLN-1 charger. Also, the cord that came with my E-M10 charger is 1/3 the length of the long E-M5 cord. I am happy about this. I always carry an extension cord with 3 outlets on it when I travel so I don't need nor want a long, unwieldy charger cord. The E-M10 cord is shorter and less to deal with.
- My 3rd party batteries use the Olympus BLS-5 charger, but the 3rd party batteries for my E-M5 needed their own, separate charger. Very happy about this!
- From all that I have read the only difference between the E-M10 3-axis IBIS and the E-M5 5-axis IBIS is that for close-ups the 5-axis is a bit better. In my use of the E-M10 so far it seems to be just as effective as the E-M5. For handheld close-ups and macros then the E-M5, I suppose, is a bit better if you are using slow shutter speeds. I don't take many handheld close-ups using slow shutter speeds so this seems like a total non-issue to me.
- The E-M10 has the new, faster, more powerful TruePic VII processor and the E-M5 has the older TruePic VI processor. I don't know how that relates to performance aspects of the E-M10, but a faster, more powerful processor is almost always better.
- The E-M10 is not rated as weather-sealed, but the E-M5 is. My thoughts about weather-sealing after 40+ years of using SLRs/DSLRs is that I have never had any weather related problems with any of my cameras so this isn't a big deal to me. The E-M5 was the first I have ever owned that claims to be weather-sealed. None of my lenses are though. My experience is that in most cases having weather-sealed cameras and lenses are not of much use for my photography anyway because the biggest problem with shooting in the rain is keeping the front element clean. I use a lens hood and UV filter, but unless there is no wind and you keep the lens always pointed downward you are still often going to get drops on the front of the lens. So, if you only shoot in the rain when there is no wind and you only point the camera downward then weather-sealing may be very helpful. When in the rain I just make a reasonable attempt to keep the camera and lens dry, but don't get anal retentive about it. When water gets on it then I try to wipe it off as soon as I can. Same for the front filter. Never had any problem. I do realize that some people on the forum feel that if they ever take the camera out of their living room then everything needs to be weather-sealed.
- The E-M10 wake-up from sleep mode is a bit faster than the E-M5.
To sum up, I am quite happy with the E-M10 at my cost of $480 for a new one. I saw a list of small firmware additions and changes someone made and there were lots of things improved in that area to compared to the E-M5.