43rumors reader Toor (Source: Twitter) created that E-M5 vs E-M10 size comparison to display the differences. If you care about small size cameras you will be happy to see the new E-M10 is quite a bit smaller!
As you know the camera will be announced on January 29 at 6am London time. Be sure to be online at that time on 43rumors to follow the event live!
69 Responses
HLD-10 🙂
Or no HLD at all: this is an entry level after all 😉
Smaller? I don´t care about millimeters.
That’s ok, millimeters care about you.
Yeah, the difference in size seems negligible. However, I have learned with these images you can’t appreciate the size difference until you hold it in your hand.
I will say, too small is not good either. There is a sweet-spot with these cameras, and I think the E-M5 found it. Hopefully, this is still substantial enough to control, and not give up something in usability. I did take issue with some of the button choices on the E-M5, but overall body size was not a problem for me.
I always thought men care about millimeters, don’t they?
No, the usual brag is, “They’ve got 12 inches but don’t normally use it as a rule”.
That camera results in DPS* for most people above the age of 11.
*Dangling Pinkie Syndrome
You’ve never used a compact camera or slr from the 70s?
It looks v. pretty, and marginally pocketable. If it had all the basics, and dropped price to entry level dSLR it could be quite a success.
Curious about the IQ with the 25/1.8.
Agreed. This camera could start to wake up many people to the advantages of m43. But, like you said, price is key. I also think Olympus needs to do something they haven’t done well, and that is market these cameras. They need a big marketing campaign for this system…
I had hints that Oly does campaigns in Asia, at least in the Straits and Japan. Campaigns cost however so presumably they think that the effect is too limited in the West, whatever they do.
At first glance I thought that may have been an image from the result of shutter shock. Lolol
Strange. The strap lugs look smaller too. I bet both cameras share the same width to preserve compatibility with the HLD-6.
That’s because I think he’s having himself on! Even the hot-shoe looks smaller with his grossly miniaturised version.
No, I think the E-M10 & E-M5 are the same width but the E-M10 is lower, possibly because it is using the lower in height 16:9 display & maybe they’ve taken out the accessories port too (as they did on the Stylus 1).
+1 It seems that the straplugs have a smaller hole, so I really think both camera’s have the same width
I agree with you Sneye & I hope they have made it usable with the HLD-6 grip too (even though the shutter button on the grip is too exposed & was improved on the HLD-7).
Agree 100% Sneye, hot shoe looks narrower and with different lens fitted there is no real datum to compare with, I go for same size body with grip compatibility and different top plate reducing height and allowances for change in control system.
Strap lug holes would be the same size so he’s messed up on the sizing. In other words, it isn’t really appreciably any smaller than the E-M5
+1 also. I think the EM10 is appreciably shorter than the EM5 but not by the amount shown. In the flesh it will feel smaller though.
I just don’t understand why this is not modelled as the EM100…
Because Olympus is not using the numbering scheme they used for the DSLRs, it rather looks like they are ‘being inspired’ by the classic OM naming/numbering scheme.
Olympus no longer using the old ‘DSLR’ scheme anymore is also quite evident in the PEN line, its not E-Px, E-Pxx, E-Pxxx but E-Px, E-PLx and E-PMx.
Mirrorless version od E-450.
Who melted my “prism”??? 🙂
Hard to belive they had such an expensive grip for only e-m5, would there be an e-m6 as well?
if only it had decent video specs………….
I bet the E-M10 will have decent video like the E-M5 and E-M1. Decent for private use that is.
If you really need video for clients or broadcasting you should stay away from Olympus.
There are much better options APS-C and m43.
Horses for courses, I’d say.
Really??? What I want is the 5-axis for a serious video work…. and there is NOTHING close to it on the market, FYI.
Ok, the EM10 won’t have the 5-axis, forgot that. But since Olympus starts to care about video their sales would increase a LOT!!! I have the GH3 and BMPCC for my video work but miss my EM5’s IBIS so much since I sold it…. Unfortunately the available frame rates and bitrates were useless on a pro video environment… unfortunately… 🙁 My personal camera today is a GX7, but can be used at work for video eventually. If only the Olys had decent video specs…….. 🙁 Excuse me, I can dream about it…
Once Panasonic got video dust in its eyes, it ended up with the monstrosity that was, and is, the GH3.
Pray that Olympus doesn’t get any sprinkled in its eyes.
And they also released that nice GM1…
Oh, and Olympus also released some E-M1, which also gets blasted for size…
Maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to just stop drawing totally outrageous conclusions about such things based on a single product?
No 25fps is no good video for ‘private use’ in the entry level market. Why? because most people in that market segment (like most non-videographers) will not have the knowledge to deal with flicker from artificial lighting from a 50hz power grid (like 90%+ of the world has). Expecting someone who knows about video to use shutter priority and non-conflicting shutter speeds is one thing, expecting a consumer to know this is just nonsense, all they’ll know is that those cameras suffer from a ‘problem’ where their cellphone doesn’t.
Private outdoor use maybe? 😉
7 days away from announcement and still no information on weather sealing?!?
come on 43 rumors, you said you would ask your sources, what did they say?
At the price point we are all hoping for, there is no way this will be weather sealed.
Lack of info implies lack of features. I suspect the selling points of the E-M10 will be mainly price and the miniaturized kit zoom. If the E-M10 is sealed and has a magnesium chassis the E-M5 will be dead on the very day it’s announced.
My guess is it will be a plastic body with the same (size) display as the E-PL5 which is a 16:9 ratio & not the 3:2 ratio of the E-M5 (& E-M1) & not weather sealed.
it looks cool!!! job well don Olympus!
my jacket pocket is already laughing 😀 🙂
Wrong scaling. Bet the E-M10 will be the same size as the E-M5.
Yes, width-wise anyhow. I don’t know why admin gives dills like this any space on this site. The same thing happened with some other idiot comparing E-M1 & GH3, making the the E-M1 look bigger than the GH3.
If this is a vectorial comparasion, I’m sorry for blaming. How can this volume of the two camera be compared? You must use the same focal to have the same perspective, and the same distance from the subject. I doubt that this is a good comparative result.
So this is successor for EM5 ?
If not , where is the successor for it ?
The EM5 if I’m not wrong already overdue ( around 24 months ) , need replacement .
Oly to explain .
It has been reported many times that this is not an E-M5 replacement, it will run concurrently with M1 and M5 bodies for the foreseeable future.
Why? It’s quite advanced even in today’s standards. Since its introduction Olympus has not shown any major technological advances that would be used by its successor (except WiFi, which is overrated). The E-M10 might have the small AF box, peaking, a 2X2 switch and a more logical control layout on the back. None of it is necessary in normal use.
Yun, don’t get yourself so excited. You might hurt yourself.
There is some speculation the E-M5 replacement (if there will be one) will likely come for Photokina in September. It’s no use even thinking about asking Olympus to explain, because they certainly won’t be letting out any trade secrets they may want to keep to themselves.
They are a small company…they were busy with the M1, M10…the m6 will come in due time…I bet that it is worth waiting for!
Hopefully an Olympus official will give an interview at CP+ to clear up the direction Olympus is going with the OMD and Pen lines of cameras.
My guess is that the E-M5 true replacement will be announced just before Photokina this fall.
“this fall” would be “this autumn” to the rest of the northern hemisphere (& spring for us ‘down under’). 😉
It all seems rather tight. Two Pen lines and two OM-D lines are enough IMO. A mid-tier OM-D (such as the E-M5) is desirable to many, but it might be too close in features (and too far in price) with respect to the top dog. If Olympus had plans to replace the E-M5 the E-M10 would be named ‘E-M100’. That puts Olympus in an awkward position at Photokina, with no high end camera to show off. Hopefully it can make up for it with some nice optics.
Fuji seems to be filling up its ranks with plenty of models & it might be OK for Olympus too, maybe.
When is that 40-150 mm lens due?
Let me guess: September? 😉
Anyway, Photokina makes a good opportunity to introduce that fast ultra-wide zoom too.
The E-M10 uses the number 10 for historical reasons, the OM10 being THE historic consumer SLR from Olympus. Also, ever since the OM2 there have been 2 single digit OM models concurrently available, where the 4 replaced the 2, and the 3 replaced the 1, but the 2 is NOT a full replacement of the 1 and the 4 is NOT a full replacement of the 3.
So seeing how Olympus clings to this retro concept, its only logical to name a consumer model E-M10, and to have 2 E-Mx models concurrently available.
They did away with the E-x, E-xx and E-xxx naming scheme for m4/3 as is totally evident from the PEN naming scheme (P, PL, PM).
Is it going to be a 3 model line? Time will tell (through currently it is), but the naming scheme doesn’t seem to be a good indicator either way.
Price wise, an approx $700 and $1400 body leave a nice spot for an intermediate model, and actually leave too much of a gap.
Yes, your arguments make a lot of sense, though Olympus must be concerned with the gap in features more than with the gap in price. A feature-rich, retro-designed “rangefinder” would fit the ~$1000 spot perfectly, but this is roughly the E-P5 habitat so I doubt such a possibility. The missing piece in this puzzle is a video-centric camera that would enjoy the benefits of “5 axis” stabilization, albeit it might get a steeper price.
There clearly is some overlap between the PEN and OM-D models when looking at features and price, through there also are clear differences (SLR versus RF style handling, integrated VF etc).
This integrated VF and SLR versus RF style handling has a lot to do with preferences, and for some those may be totally equivalent, but for many those aren’t, hence I don’t see the E-P5 sitting between the E-M10 and E-M1, its simply a totally different kind of camera.
Also, I think the GX7 has already demonstrated that while the people desiring a RF style camera may be very vocal, the actual customer base for such a camera is by far not as big as the amount of ‘noise’ suggests. (and that is not trying to say the desire for RF handling is wrong, just that it isn’t as prominent among photographers as some very vocal proponents suggest), hence I don’t think it is a good way to fill that gap.
Obviously, this being Olympus, their actual logic may be totally different, at times they seem to live in an alternative reality really.
Hi Yaa, The problem with your reasoning and other before you is how the photography market has changed. Yes Olympus had the OM-1 and OM-2, these, were as you say replaced by the 3 and 4 followed T & Ti upgrades, not forgetting the OM-2SP which ran concurrently for a while with the 2n, let’s not forget all models had a full manual mode which for all intent was the same in each model. The difficulty in following that path is the simple matter of Manual and Automatic varieties, those were the choices available, nowadays the options available can almost be infinitesimal with tweaking of the firmware. So the question Olympus and the other manufacturers have to ask themselves is, what do we include, what do we leave out, whatever choices they make someone will gripe about them.
We must not forget that the M-1, OM-1/n, OM-2/n/SP, OM-3/T/Ti OM-4/T/Ti for all intent and purpose had the same body only with the 10/20/30 & 40 were there differences in body. So what do they do now, maintain the EM-1 body as the top line (OM-2 OM-4), EM-5 as the mid line (OM-1 OM-3) with the new EM-10 covering the (10-20-30-40 models). The entire question of following a pure OM path is nigh on impossible, no one today makes a pure manual camera, the only manufacturer doing anything remotely different from the norm is Leica with it’s purely Monochrome body. Shall we ask Olympus for such a beast???
Actually, the important distinction between the OM-1 and 2 for example was that the 1 does not require a battery for taking pictures where the 2 does. Difference between purely mechanical shutter and electronic shutter. This difference was especially at that time relevant, as an OM-1 will work perfectly fine on top of mount Everest (for example) while an OM-2 will at best let you take a few pictures before being dead due to cold batteries in such cases. This actually made the -1 more ‘pro’ then the 2 for specific uses. Obviously, electronic shutter does bring lots of advantages that made the 2 desirable in its own right.
Obviously this distinction does not exist in the OM-D line of cameras, but there are more differences between the old OM line and the OM-D line, and the similarities are more related to form and ‘concept’ then to actual technical details.
Anyway, there were 3 points to my post:
– Olympus is not using the E-x/xx/xxx nomenclature for their m4/3 cameras as is very clear from the PEN line, hence an E-Mxx does not at all have to be at the same level as an E-xx, and a consumer model does not have to be called E-Mxxx.
– Historically the OM-10 was THE consumer model, and Olympus seems rather bend on referring to such historical things in their current camera lines, hence using E-M10 for a consumer model makes total sense, and does not at all indicate anything about the names and replacements of higher end models.
– Olympus has at various times indicated they plan on a 3 tier OM-D line consisting of a lower, medium/advanced and ‘pro’ model, while also having indicated they’d like to reduce the PEN line to 2 models.
There is a clear gap between an E-M10 and E-M1, and as pointed out above, the E-P5 is approx there in features, but not entirely (weather sealing for example) and is too different to take the place of that inbetween model (clip-on EVF, RF style handling)
Rather, its in my opinion much more likely Olympus will over time drop the E-Px models (as they actually suggested earlier on) but will introduce a new ‘medium level’ OM-D model. The only reasonable alternative would be an E-P6 with integrated EVF, but considering market reception, sales and competing models, that doesn’t seem to be a reasonable way to go. Obviously, this being Olympus, they may have a totally different view on what is reasonable.
Anyway, I agree that the market changed a lot since the early 70s, but I don’t agree that this will stop Olympus from using a naming/numbering scheme very similar to that of the original OM cameras, just that the actual differences will be quite unlike those between the OM-x models.
– ‘entry level’: plastic/fiberglass body, no weather sealing, ‘standard’ EVF, ‘standard’ IBIS, no PDAF. Essentially an E-PLx in a miniature SLR style body and with EVF.
– ‘advanced’: magnesium alloy body, weather sealing, standard EVF, ‘advanced’ IBIS, likely no PDAF, currently the E-M5, which could just get all the goodies from the slightly newer hardware and firmware incarnation (wifi, focus peaking, smaller AF points)
– ‘pro’: magnesium alloy body, weather sealing, ‘advanced’ EVF and IBIS, PDAF, improved ergonomics (at the expense of size and weight), currenly the E-M1.
To me it seems those are 3 clearly different products aiming at somewhat different customers and different usage patterns and budget considerations, and with a product differentiation that is much clearer and better then that between the various PEN models.
The mention of fibreglass/plastic bodies keeps popping up; yet all of the mFT bodies, PEN and OM-D have been made of metal and I don’t see this changing. High end is cast and low-end, component pieces, but solid in compare to the old e-XXX fibre-reinforced plastic approach … and they should stick to this. Nothing makes the huge DSLRs more cheap than to house them in flimsy plastic bodies to save on weight and cost. Dense, durable Olympus mFT should be a trademark feature. And Lumix make consumer level plastic options for that niche requirement of the market.
Actually, that is not entirely true.
First of all, the E-PL1 had a mostly polycarbonate body construction.
Beyond that, many PENs have a mostly metal (front), partially plastic (rear) body construction, where the actual amount differs between models. Also, looking at the E-Px models with their ‘all metal shell’, this shell clearly consists of a metal cover around something else. That something else might also be metal, who knows.
Seeing how size and weight seem to be totally key to the upcoming announcement, a lighter fiberglass body shell makes a lot of sense. Also from the point of view of product differentiation it makes a lot of sense.
Anyway, I hope you are right, through I’m pretty sure body construction is one of the things that has been used to differentiate an ‘entry level’ OM-D from mid and high tier ones.
The advantage Canon and Nikon have is that they have a camera at nearly every price point. Low-mid-high level I think is important, even if there is overlap in features. There are going to be plenty of people who may want to upgrade from the E-M10, and won’t want to make the leap to the E-M1. And the reality is, there are plenty of features on the E-M1 that people don’t need. However, stepping up to the E-M5 level makes a lot of sense. You must have something in between.
BTW I really hope that the new E-M5 kits includes a FW upgrade. It would be a pity not to issue it for the occasion.
Amalric, I need to learn a few lessons from you in calm and political correctness. If it were me, I would have had a rant and demanded action from Olympus about provided an update on a model that looks like it is about to be dropped…
Many of us may fall off our chairs if they do, but an old lens did get a firmware update in Feb 2012, the ZD70-300 lens & that was a little surprising at the time. I did use that lens on my E-M5 too (until I bought the M.ZD75-300 Mk II lens).
Lets see…
Last firmware update for the E-P2, which is no longer marketed for quite a while now…
Oh.. July 2013.
Actually, all PENs except for the E-P1 did get a firmware update last year, regardless of how long ago they have been replaced, hence suggesting that Olympus does not release firmware for older products is easily demonstrated to be an absurd lie.
A firmware update for the E-M5 is certainly not out of the question, but its highly questionable if its going to add 25p support and focus peaking. Actually, its extremely unlikely to do so, no matter how much people will feel entitled to this, and lets just be fair, when buying the E-M5 you KNEW it didn’t have those features, and noone ever made any kind of promise of Olympus adding them, so this entire idea of being entitled to such things is just totally ridiculous.
Would it be a good move for them to add those 2 things to the E-M5? I’m sure many users, me included, would rather like that. Is it actually possible to do so? That is an entirely different question, and not one you have any chance on guessing the answer unless you have some real understanding of writing real-time software on a low-level OS for an embedded device and knowing the exact feature set implemented in the asics used in the E-M5. Since you certainly don’t know the later, its not going to be possible for you (or me for that matter) to judge if this can be done or can’t be done.
i would like em-1 features in an em-5 body am i the only one
still its a year or two be for i will be looking at getting a new camrea
more lens frist i hope
I’ll raise you one. I’d like EM1 features in an EM10 body.
Seriously though. If I felt like I didn’t need my D800e for the most critical of shots and conditions and a decent super telephoto length lens I’d consider this as a backup body to my EM1. Just wish that the video quality were better. Alas I think I’ll need to get a GH3 or 4K to satisfy that itch.
I’m really excited now :p
Good thing micro4/3 is finally going “micro”. It’s the only way to maintain an edge over APS-C mirrorless, which have already gotten surprisingly small.
Hmm, you somehow managed to miss the E-PMx, GFx and GM1 models released over the last half decade or so?
Hint: a single release of a bigger camera (say E-M1 or GH3) does NOT AT ALL mean all future cameras from the same manufacturer will be of a similar size, or that there is a general move in m4/3 towards bigger cameras.
but does it have a full frame sensor?
I bet it will be a ‘full frame’ 4/3″ sensor 🙂