Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12.3 megapixel Super Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 8Mb.

During the review, the Olympus E-5 produced images of very good quality. In the Natural picture mode, colours are vibrant without being garish or over-saturated, while dynamic range is pretty good (except at ISO 100, which is actually ISO 200 overexposed and "pulled" by a stop, leading to highlight clipping in some cases). Auto Gradation can be very helpful in maximising shadow detail, and should be your preferred setting when shooting in contrasty light. From ISO 100 through ISO 800, image quality is on a par with - and arguably superior to - the APS-C competition thanks to an unusually crisp rendering of fine detail that reaches nearly Foveon-esque levels with the Noise Filter turned off. Above ISO 1600, the situation is reversed as the Olympus E-5 cannot keep up with the likes of the Nikon D7000 and the Pentax K-5, which remain perfectly usable up to ISO 6400 and beyond, where the E-5 simply can’t follow them. Long exposures are OK, but not spectacular - you will really want the camera to use dark frame subtraction to avoid hot pixels, even if this solution effectively doubles your exposure times. Finally, the presence of Art Filters may be unusual in a pro camera, but they do produce special effects that would otherwise require you to spend a lot of time in the digital darkroom.

Noise

The Olympus E-5 has a base sensitivity of ISO 200, with ISO 100 available as a "pull-processed" option (ISO 200 overexposed by a stop, and "pulled" back by the processing engine). The highest speed is ISO 3200, with a "boosted" or "push-processed" setting of ISO 6400 also available. The following crops illustrate the quality at each full speed, with the Noise Filter (see below) turned off. The raw files have been processed with ACR 6.3 at default settings.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Noise Filter

The Olympus E-5 offers four Noise Filter settings: High, Standard, Low and Off. The default setting is Standard, but it’s unnecessarily strong and robs images of fine detail, especially at slower ISO speeds. The Noise Filter settings can be modified in Menu G (Quality/Aspect/Colour/WB). The following 100% crops demonstrate the effect of each Noise Filter setting at ISO 3200.

Off	Low
Standard	High

Sharpening

With the Noise Filter turned off, photos from the Olympus E-5 are crisp and sharp using the 12-60mm lens. That said, you might still want to add some extra sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. Alternatively, you can change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your needs. Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved for Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

Olympus offers no less than four JPEG quality settings - Basic, Normal, Fine and Super Fine. Incomprehensibly, Super Fine is not selectable by default; you first have to enable it from the menu. Naturally, you may opt to save your photographs in the camera’s raw file format (ORF). Raw+JPEG shooting is available.

12M Super Fine (100% Crop)	12M Fine (100% Crop)
12M Normal (100% Crop)	12M Basic (100% Crop)
12M RAW (100% Crop)

Moiré

The weak anti-aliasing filer used in the Olympus E-5 helps with capturing fine detail that would be lost on a stronger filter, but can occasionally lead to artefacts such as colour moiré. This does not happen often, and can usually be reduced in post-processing, but is still something to be aware of, especially if using a lens that can out-resolve the sensor.

Flash

The Olympus E-5 features a pop-up flash that has multiple modes including Forced On, Forced Off, Auto, Slow Sync, Rear-Curtain Sync and almost any of these combined with red-eye reduction. It can also serve as an AF assist light or as a controller for wirelessly slaved FL-36R or FL-50R units. In addition to the on-board unit, the Olympus E-5 also has a hot-shoe for system flashes, and a PC sync terminal for studio strobes. The pictures below were taken of a white ceiling from a distance of 1.5m, with and without the built-in flash.

Flash Off - Wide Angle	Flash On - Wide Angle
Flash Off - Telephoto	Flash On - Telephoto

And now for some portraits. The pop-up flash of the Olympus E-5 did not really cause a red-eye effect, so the only noticeable difference between the Forced On and Forced On with Red-Eye Reduction settings is that the second causes the subject’s pupils to contract.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Red-eye reduction	Red-eye reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The Olympus E-5 lets you dial in shutter speeds of up to 60 seconds and has a Bulb mode as well for exposure times as long as 30 minutes, which is very good news if you are seriously interested in night photography. On the other hand, the appearance of hot pixels can be a problem with long exposures, which can be tackled by turning on the Noise Reduction function. Distinct from the Noise Filter discussed above, NR is based on the principle of dark frame subtraction. Do note that this solution effectively doubles your exposure times.  The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 30 seconds, aperture of f/11 at ISO 200. We’ve included a 100% crop for you to see what the quality is like.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Image Stabilisation

The Olympus E-5 comes with a sensor-shift image stabilisation (IS) system, which allows you to take sharp hand-held photos at slower shutter speeds than with cameras that lack this feature. These examples are 100% crops from two photos taken at 1/13 second at the 120mm equivalent setting. As you can see, the one taken with IS turned off is really blurry, whereas the one captured with the help of the stabilisation system is sharp.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Shadow Adjustment Technology

The Olympus E-5 features Shadow Adjustment Technology (SAT), a useful feature for JPEG shooters. Similarly to Nikon’s D-lighting, Sony’s DRO etc., this solution brightens the shadows in a high-contrast scene without affecting the midtones or the highlights. The way to engage SAT is to set the tonal gradation to Auto via the Super Control Panel. Below you can see a comparison of Normal and Auto gradation; the difference is noticeable in the shadows. (Two other, special-use gradation settings are available on the camera, Low Key and High Key. The former is for photographing dark subjects against dark backgrounds, whereas the latter is for light-toned subjects against a light-toned background.)

Normal	Auto

Picture Modes

Olympus’ Picture Modes are essentially pre-set combinations of saturation, contrast and sharpness, except for the new i-Enhance mode that aims to optimise each photo individually. You can tailor each Picture Mode to your needs. The following examples demonstrate the differences across the available Picture Modes.

Natural	Portrait
Vivid	Muted
i-Enhance	Monotone

Art Filters

Perhaps surprisingly for a professional digital SLR camera, Olympus has decided to include no less than ten Art Filters in the E-5. One of these, Dramatic Tone, is entirely new. Given that these filters apply irreversible modifications to JPEGs, it makes to shoot raw+JPEG when applying any of them, so that you always have an untouched original to work with in case the effect is not to your liking.

Cross Process	Diorama
Full-size Image	Full-size Image
Dramatic Tone	Grainy Film
Full-size Image	Full-size Image
Light Tone	Pale Light
Full-size Image	Full-size Image
Pinhole	Pop Art
Full-size Image	Full-size Image
Sepia	Soft Focus
Full-size Image	Full-size Image

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Olympus E-5 camera, which were all taken using the 12.3 megapixel Super Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Olympus E-5 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Olympus RAW (ORF) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

As of February 2025, we are no longer providing full size sample images or videos for download.

Please contact us if you have any feedback on our new policy.

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Isometric View

Isometric View

Front of the Camera / External Flash

Front of the Camera / Pop-up Flash

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / Rotating Screen

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compertment

Conclusion

The Olympus E-5 is an exceptionally well-built and rugged digital SLR camera that is a joy to use and produces remarkably crisp images with great colours, and resolution that defies its pixel count. The tank-like build, chunky hand-grip, ultra-fast AF system and excellent viewfinder - all inherited from its predecessor, the Olympus E-3 - made for a great shooting experience, while the large, high-res articulated LCD screen proved to be a godsend when working on a tripod or shooting hand-held above the head or near the ground. Some of the innovations first introduced with the E-30 - and thus absent from the older E-3 -, such as AF fine tuning and a dual-axis electronic level gauge, are among the most welcome improvements, too.

Having said that, Olympus did miss a golden opportunity to get rid of a few ergonomic glitches and usability handicaps that plagued the E-3: the multi-purpose buttons will still drive new users crazy in the first weeks, the dual-card concept is still poorly implemented with no instant back-up or automatic overflow options, and there is still no electronic focus confirmation available when using legacy lenses, unless you buy a "chipped" third-party adapter. Plus, the otherwise welcome increase in the size of the rear LCD monitor has led to a poorer placement of some buttons and the loss of a memory card door lock and physical IS button.

In terms of image quality, there is a marked improvement over the E-3 thanks to a somewhat higher-resolution sensor and a weaker anti-aliasing filter. From ISO 100 through ISO 800, IQ is arguably superior to some of the APS-C competition, owing to an unusually crisp rendering of fine micro-detail that reaches nearly Foveon-esque levels with the Noise Filter turned off. Above ISO 1600, the situation is reversed as the Olympus E-5 cannot keep up with the likes of the Nikon D7000 and the Pentax K-5, which remain perfectly usable up to ISO 6400 and beyond, where the E-5 simply can’t follow them. Thus, from an IQ point of view, the choice boils down to where the bulk of your shooting takes place.

As far as video goes, well, it is a mixed bag. We liked the manual exposure option and the quasi-dedicated movie shutter button, as well as the clean, high-quality footage produced. On the other hand the limitations imposed on video resolution, frame rate and recording time are all pretty incomprehensible given the pro status of the camera, and the "rolling shutter" effects are more pronounced on the E-5 than some competing models. The ability to apply Art Filters to video is great, though.

Overall, the Olympus E-5 is an excellent camera and clearly the best Four Thirds DSLR to date. Its weakest point is the eye-watering price tag of £1499/$1699 for the body only, which is higher than that of any of the main competitors (and not much lower than that of the 24-megapixel, full-frame Sony A850). Granted, the E-5’s feature set as a whole is somewhat unique but it would be surprising to see masses of Canon, Nikon or Pentax users switch systems at that price, especially given that there are some highly capable cameras in their own systems available for considerably less money. If you are already a Four Thirds user though, we can highly recommend the Olympus E-5 to you - it’s simply the best companion for your Zuiko Digital lenses.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	3

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Olympus E-5 from around the web.

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