Camera Test | SLR and System Cameras
Compact Four Thirds format system camera
with SLR look and feel. Very fast AF, great
electronic viewfinder, kit lens with built-in
(optional) motorized zoom.
Good: Compact dust and moisture-sealed
magnesium body with good overall handling.
Sensor shift image stabilization. High-quality
vertically tiltable OLED monitor. Infrared
proximity sensor for switching to electronic
viewfinder, which doesn’t use color sequence
technology and is easy to view. Icon-driven
Quick Task menu at edge of monitor. Fast,
precise (contrast-based) AF in all lighting
conditions. Bright AF assist lamp. Manual focus
override. Fast continuous shooting with little
shutter noise. Custom limitable auto ISO.
Manual white balance with two preset
memories. Extremely configurable via an 86-line
custom settings menu. Compact accessory flash
included. Optional two-piece battery grip.
Not so good:Body almost too small, with some
connectors only accessible when the monitor is
tilted. Too few dedicated controls. Arrow
buttons too small, delay before button action
becomes continuous too short. Playback and
Fn1 buttons too small and difficult to use.
Touchscreen functionality rudimentary. OLED
screen green-tinged when viewed at an
angle. No separate LED control panel. Simple
self-timer. Tripod thread non-central. Moderate
battery capacity with no continuous status
display. High purchase price.
Test results:Maximum contrast from ISO 200
to 800 very good, dropping off slightly toward
ISO 6400 and significantly above ISO 12 800.
Very good white balance. Signal-to-noise ratio
and visual noise very good at ISO 800 and still
good all the way up to ISO 3200. Very good
resolution right up the ISO scale. Fast, relatively
long sequences, moderate startup time and
very little shutter lag for a contrast-based AF
system.Image quality:Very good color rendition under
lab conditions in daylight. Orange test sticker
slightly salmon-colored. Good, evenly
distributed sharpness and, for a 16-megapixelsensor, very good detail rendition. Balanced
exposure with well-defined grayscale wedges.
Only slight banding on our line chart, otherwise
no significant moirés. Slight fringing on the text
chart and our sieve. Very clean images at ISO
200, with some noise and slight loss of detail in
gray tones at ISO 400. Obvious loss of detail,
texture and sharpness at ISO 800 (the limit
for 100% viewing). Loss of edge definition,
appearance of color noise artifacts and
significant loss of texture at ISO 1600, increasing
toward ISO 3200 with additional color noise in
our test sticker. ISO 3200 the limit for full-screen
viewing. Images washed out and with
significant data loss at ISO 6400 and above.Outdoor images well exposed with good color
rendition, good sharpness and very good
detail rendition, even at wide-angle settings
and wide apertures. Noise characteristics the
same as under lab conditions up to ISO 800
(fine for 100% viewing). Loss of texture
thereafter. Obvious blur and loss of detail
above ISO 3200.Olympus OM-D E-M5
ISO 200 ISO 400 ISO 1600 ISO 6400