[Guest]

I really am interested in hearing comments on the 12-50 when you have a chance Sylvian; I had a chance to play with the nex-7, fuji pro-1 and em-5 yesterday (a local shop is having a 'show'). Mind you I only spent about 10 minutes with each camera (well 25 with the em-5) so take these comments with a grain of salt:



Of the three the evf on the em-5 was by far the best. The issue I had with the nex-7 (which most reviews I read had rated highly) was the dynamic range and flickering (due to indoor lighting); the pro-1 was darn poor in this regards; the nex-7 washed out every time I pointed it near a light (display case or similar); the em-5 held up even when I took it to the front door and pointed it outside (though I have to admit it was cloudy yesterday).

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Also the em-5 was very responsive (the nex was not bad; but i had a bit more trouble with the nex's interface; it was similar to the hx9v I had played with last year; so I knew what to expect). The one thing that surprised me about the em-5 was that the grip actually made a big difference (though I'm too cheap to spend $300 for a vertical bar; I have no need for the lower battery pack). In general I have small hands but having the grip actually form a cup felt better.

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None of these comments cover image quality or nitty build details; I just wanted a chance to actually hold the cameras; try manual focusing and similar before making a purchase. I had expected to prefer the nex-7 ergonomics and evf so was a bit surprise by the em-5. Mind you if I actually owned and used the camera for a few weeks my feelings might change; but I found the em-5 fairly easy to handle; evf the best (repeating myself) and manual focus fairly easy; though I admit I would prefer a slightly larger view finder with the same dpi.

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The pro-1 hunted inside (it had an 18f2 mounted; the 35f1.4 was not availble); the camera felt significantly larger than the nex-7 and em-5 but the optical viewfinder with overlays was gorgeous. The issue is that you can't manual focus with it; and the focus system was slower than I expected (cannot comment on accuracy).

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The nex-7 was ok; it felt a little better in the hand than the em-5 but the evf was very annoying inside mostly due to flickering effect (probably related to the store lighting). I'm sure outside the evf would be fine. It just didn't grab me the way the em-5 did (this surprises me a bit). My understanding is that the nex-7 is better for video though this seems to be a general truth of sony's cameras.

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The olympus representative coudln't tell me too much; one comment he made was that the recent panasonic 4/3 video system caused a run on olympus f2 lenses and they would likely be discontinued soon (due to lack of stock). I hammered on him about faster (or better) zooms for micro 4/3 and mentioned panasonic rumoured lenses but he could offer no advice or comments here (someone else associated with olympus told me a few months ago that I should expected some better zooms from olympus for m 4/3; but he had no clue when (probably another year).

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Anyways the em-5 seemed like a really fun camera; though I think in a year or two the pro (probably pro-2 or pro-3) will be an interesting system - kind of wish fuji had gone with a full frame sensor; though that would increase the prices of the lenses a bit.