Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsPhenomenal camera with worst menu/button layout ever!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2016
I wanted desperately to like this camera, if feels amazing, it's a solid professional build. It has just about every feature one can hope to have in a camera and when coupled with the Panasonic 42.5mm f/1.7 it is capable of capturing amazing light. It's the buttons and the menu though that kill it dead. I read all the reviews about the Olympus menu system and just assumed those writers didn't know very much about menu systems, besides, I'm a professional IT guy with over 15 years experience, I'm an expert+ when it comes to all things electronic/computer, so please believe me when I write this, THEY WERE CORRECT! This menu system is nearly the worst I've ever seen in any product, it's horrible, terrible, just plain disastrous. It's completely unintuitive, cumbersome and takes hours to figure out. Once figured out, it's still awful. You'll have no speed if you like to change settings, which means, unless you work in a lab, you'll miss the shot. The programmable buttons are neat, if you can figure out where you want to place everything and what's most important to you, but geez, not fun. Probably the worst button/lever is for the power; it's on the opposite side of the camera from the grip, which means you must use your left hand to turn the darn thing on. I've used Nikon, Canon, Sony and Panasonic systems and all of them have the power location accessible by the grip hand (usually by the index finger), this camera is built weird. Too bad too, because when everything is dialed in, it shoots like a dream. It's very well made too. If you have all the time in the world, love to tinker and spend more time with buttons than shooting, this is your camera. If however, you have a strong desire to take great photos, look elsewhere. Sorry Olympus, you almost had me.
