OM-D E-M5 and X-Pro1: handling

Australia is very remarkable country. You can walk into major shop and handle Olympus OM-D E-M5 or Fuji X-Pro1 while in most places around the globe these cameras are available only for pre-orders. Anyway, I went to Ted's today and played with both cameras for some time. The Olympus E-M5 is amazingly small and light-weight. My hands are not small, and it was not really comfortable to use the camera as a standard DSLR (using EVF). I have impression that shooting with rear screen might be more comfortable. By the way, the rear screen is gorgeous and tilting is really useful feature. The E-M5 viewfinder is very bright. The eyecup is indeed relatively short(?) and probably may not be very protective in bright sun (this is pure speculation, I used the camera inside the shop). The focus is very fast. There might be some measurable difference in focusing between the E-M5 and some mid-range DSLRs but for me it probably would be unnoticeable.

Fuji X-Pro1 is bigger and heavier than the E-M5. It is amazingly comfortable to handle it despite its weight. It is even more comfortable than Fuji X100. Then, the viewfinder. There might be some difference between X100 and X-Pro1 but for person who comes from entry- and mid-range 4/3 camera it is just different world. I would say both the X100 and X-Pro1 are designed for shooting "through viewfinder".

The shop also had Pentax K-01 with 18-55mm lens on display. It is huge and very strange-looking thing. It is similar to DSLR in size.

Obviously, it is very hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from such brief experience.

Then there are rumors about new Olympus camera. Can it be OM-D E-M5 without the viewfinder? Just keep all buttons and tilting screen. Probably it will cannibalize the E-P3 sales, and the price gap between the E-P3 and E-M5 is not big but it probably will be extremely popular. More buttons, better IBIS, no hump... It does look very attractive. The cost of design and production probably will be relatively small because of the shared components with the another camera. This is just my speculations, I have no information regarding specs of the rumored Olympus camera.

There were some rumors in the last several month about Samsung planning a version of the NX20 camera without the viewfinder. The NX300 name is periodically leaking from the Samsung...

I must to say these cameras are very tempting. In these days before going to sleep I repeat "I don't need new camera" mantra at least five times :)