Olympus gets a video dSLR at last: Hello E-5

While professional cameras don't get updated nearly as frequently as consumer models, Olympus is still pushing it with the almost 3-year gap between its E-3 and the newly announced E-5. Given the pace of technological change, especially in that market and most notably with respect to video capture, it's a wonder that more Olympians haven't jumped ship. Don't get me wrong; there's still a lot to like about the Olympus system. If you shoot telephoto, the 2x focal-length multiplier makes for more easily achieved long-zoom shots, and the company still makes some of the best lenses. And it's well constructed, dust and splashproof. But for commercial photographers tasked with keeping up with ever more demanding clients, it must be frustrating to watch the company concentrating on its ILC (interchangeable-lens camera) market while you wait..and wait...and wait.

Was the E-5 worth the wait? While I can't really answer that until I've tested it, based on the specs I'm not very optimistic. Although it has the same autofocus system as the E-3, it's been tweaked, and the E-3 has always been pretty fast, anyway. It also retains the articulated LCD, which grows to 3 inches--definitely a plus. And of course, there's the resolution bump, and video. Here's a comparative summary:

Things that don't appear in a comparison table include an update to the TruePic V+ image processing engine plus an addition to its Art Filters, Dramatic Tone ("applying unrealistic tones of light and darkness based on local changes in contrast") and the ability to use the Art Filters in all shooting modes. Olympus also expanded the exposure bracketing to seven shots, but at least based on the specs the camera doesn't seem to have the latitude to really take advantage of it.

For Olympus shooters who've been waiting for video, this is bound to be a disappointing implementation. While it's similar to the D300s', that camera's a year old and pretty underpowered as well. Even if you're OK with the 720p resolution, Motion JPEG is simply an inefficient video codec. (It's unclear to me as of this writing how flexible the manual controls will be.)

Here's how it compares to the competition:

At least as far as the specs indicate, it's slower than Canon and Nikon, with a less sophisticated autofocus system, and a viewfinder with the lowest effective magnification. If you like shooting Live View, Olympus does tend to excel at LV autofocus speed. But I can't see any obvious advantages the E-5 might have over them. The resolution increase alone might make it worth the while of E-3 upgraders, but there's not much compelling here. I'd like to hear from the Olympus shooters out there, though. Is this what you've been waiting for?