Art filters
Although we have covered Olympus’s art filters in the past, the changes made to those on this camera make them worthy of a second look. This is mainly down to their repositioning in the menu as a picture style that makes them accessible from every shooting mode – including video.
A big criticism of the art filters in the past has been that you are forced to use auto settings. Now you can remain in aperture priority, for instance, and use the effect with the aperture you require.
There are ten art filters on the E-5, and of those five allow further adjustment to fine-tune the look and feel of the image.
Those that cannot be adjusted tend to be the more extreme effects, such as pop art, diorama and grainy film. This is a shame, because it would really be handy to play around with these effects. Some of my favourite filters include the diorama, which gives a tilt/shift effect to create miniature scenes; the grainy film for a retro b&w feel; and the new dramatic tone filter.
Although the effect created using dramatic tone is a little over the top for some scenes, it is a lot of fun. It looks great on videos, too, adding a slight time-lapse effect to the filming. Thankfully, processing time is faster, and effects are instant rather than taking a extra seconds to process after each shot, as on earlier Olympus DSLRs.
