Olympus PEN Lite E-PL5: Performance

Performance

The Olympus E-PL5 has overall excellent performance for autofocusing, responsiveness, and image quality. But it enters into a domain where there is lots of competition that is very stiff on different fronts.

Shooting Performance
Power up time for the E-PL5 is on the slower side - the screen was lit about 3 second after startup and a first shot can be taken after unlocking and extending the lens. Single shot-to-shot times ran about 1 second. The camera made 8 fps in "sequential" (continuous) drive at full resolution with JPEGs.

Shutter lag on the E-PL5 was a very respectable 0.01 seconds, and AF acquisition time ran about 0.27 seconds.

Shutter Lag (press-to-capture, pre-focused)

AF Acquisition (press-to-capture, no pre-focus)

Continuous Shooting

*Note: Continuous shooting framerates are based on the camera's fastest full-resolution JPEG continuous shooting mode, using the fastest media type available (300x CF, SDHC, etc.). "Frames" notes the number of captures recorded per burst before the camera stops/slows to clear the buffer.

Battery life is listed as approximately 360 shots when IS is on. We experienced good results with battery life.

The Olympus E-PL5 has an included flash that can be slid into the hotshoe/accessory port. To use the flash it must be lifted to the "up" position. 

This port also allows you to attach several different accessories developed for the Olympus line of cameras, including the VF-2 and VF-3 electronic viewfinder, the SEMA-1 microphone adapter set and the MAL-1 macro lights. Unfortunately, only one of these can be attached at a time.

Lens Performance
The kit lens is the 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 and provides a 24-84 field of view. The lens is really quite good, sharp, fast to focus, and collapses into itself for more compact storage. What users will need to keep in mind though is that if the lens is locked/collapsed, the camera won't take pictures. You can, however, access the menu functions.

If used correctly though, the lens's Bokeh can look very nice though not as pleasing as some of the compact prime lenses that the company makes. Also, this lens will force the camera/user to shoot at higher ISO settings in low light. Thankfully, Olympus's sensor-based image stabilization system works well to ensure that camera shake doesn't happen.

If the user chooses to shoot in JPEG mode and auto ISO, then the images they yield will look great on the web when using this lens. Chromatic aberration, softness, vignetting and flare are also very well controlled. However, the lens can suffer from some fringing in super high contrast areas.

Video Quality
The EPL5 has one distinct advantage when it comes to recording video, and that is the fact that it has sensor based stabilization. That means that when you're moving around trying to record, the footage will look much smoother. But for the best results, we still recommend holding the camera in as close to your body as you can.

The footage looks a little muted even when the camera is set to the vivid mode; so users might want to import the files into their favorite editing software to give it a bit if a sprucing before showing off their masterpiece.

Image Quality
Overall image quality on the Olympus E-PL5 is excellent. Borrowing the sensor from its bigger brother, the OMD EM5 helps quite a bit with this. Color capturing and white balancing are extremely true to life, though the camera can sometimes render images warmer than they should be. This can be turned off though by adjusting the according setting in the camera's menus. The exposure performance also ranked very well with the images all being very balanced according to the camera's light meter.

Using the art filters can be fun if you're looking to be creative, but in the end it will only just degrade the image quality.

Pop Art	Soft Focus
Pale and light color	Light Tone
Grainy Film	Pin Hole

Diorama	Cross Process
Gentle Sepia	Dramatic Tone
Key Line	Watercolor

ISO performance is exceptional up to 1600; and there is where the camera starts to not perform as well as some of its competitors in this category. When noise reduction is turned on, it can smear fine details. For the best results, we recommend shooting in RAW and adjusting the noise reduction and sharpness accordingly.

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12,800

ISO 25,600

Additional Sample Images