In 2008, Olympus wowed photographers with a retro-styled prototype of what would become its first Micro Four Thirds PEN camera, the E-P1 ($799.99, 3.5 stars). In the years since, the company has refined the PEN designs, adding models that support optional EVFs and other accessories like the latest-generation PEN E-P3 ($899.99, 4 stars). The 16-megapixel OM-D E-M5 ($1,299.99 direct, with 12-50mm lens) takes its design cues from cameras that were part of the company's classic OM film SLR line, which were renowned for their small size when they were introduced back in 1972. The E-M5 also manages to live up to their legend. It's a modern camera with an excellent EVF, lightning-fast autofocus, great handling, a very sharp and versatile kit lens, and full weather sealing. As such, it earns our Editors' Choice award for high-end compact interchangeable lens cameras.

Design and Features
The E-M5 is a bit larger than the smallest mirrorless compacts, but still not as big as a D-SLR. It measures 3.5 by 4.8 by 1.6 inches (HWD) and weighs about 15 ounces without a lens. If a smaller camera is what you crave, you'd be better off looking at something like our low-end Editors' Choice mirrorless compact, the Sony Alpha NEX-C3 ($649.99, 4.5 stars), which weighs 9.8 ounces and measures 2.4 by 4.4 by 1.3 inches. The E-M5 has a modest handgrip, but I found it most comfortable to use along with the OM-D HLD-6 Battery Grip ($299.99). 

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You've got two options for framing images. The first is an eye-level electronic viewfinder. It's housed just where it would be on a D-SLR, adding a characteristic angular hump to the top of the E-M5. Packed with 1.44 million dots, the LCD EVF is sharp and crisp, although with less contrast than the OLED EVF built into the Sony Alpha NEX-7 ($1,349.99, 4.5 stars). The camera's rear 3-inch touch screen display is OLED, and even though its resolution is just 610k dots, it is extremely bright and crisp. The rear panel is hinged, so you can frame shots from above or below. There's no built-in flash, but Olympus includes a pop-up flash that slides into the hot shoe. If you need a more powerful strobe, Olympus offers a few options that are compatible with the E-M5, including models that support bounce and swivel.

Physical controls are plentiful here. There are two control wheels, a mode dial, two programmable function buttons, a video recording button, and a four-way controller. The camera's menu system is pretty intense—there are pages and pages of options that you can customize—but once you've got the camera configured to suit your shooting style you won't have to spend a ton of time paging through it. I programmed the Fn2 button to activate its integrated digital zoom. If you're shooting in JPG or Raw+JPG, it effectively doubles your focal length. I was quite impressed with the quality of the digitally zoomed JPGs—they were only slightly softer than non-zoomed files, and retained the full 16-megapixel resolution. I also used the function as a manual focusing aid when shooting with legacy lenses. Tapping the button toggles between the two views, and even if you do find yourself firing a shot off when zoomed unintentionally in Raw+JPG mode, the Raw file retains the full field of view—it is only the JPG version that is cropped in-camera.

One of the advantages of Olympus Micro Four Thirds bodies over Panasonic cameras with the same lens mount and sensor size like the Lumix DMC-GX1 ($799.99, 3.5 stars) is in-body image stabilization. This adds stabilization to any lens that you mount on the camera. The system implemented in the E-M5 features a 5-axis stabilizer, which does a great job keeping shots sharp. I was able to shoot crisp photos at slower shutter speeds without issue. The system also helps to keep your video footage steady.

If you're interested in using legacy lenses with adapters, a popular practice with mirrorless camera enthusiasts, remember that the Micro Four Thirds sensor is only half the diagonal size of a 35mm film frame. This effectively doubles the focal length of any lens you attach—your old 25mm wide angle lens suddenly becomes a standard-angle 50mm when you use it with this camera. You may want to consider a camera with a larger APS-C sensor, which has a 1.5x multiplication factor, like the Sony Alpha NEX-5N ($699.99, 4.5 stars) or the Samsung NX200 ($899.99, 3.5 stars) if you're looking for a compact digital platform for older lenses. The NEX-7  is another option here, but it's best suited for adapted SLR lenses, as its 24-megapixel sensor exhibits color shift issues when using adapted wide-angle rangefinder lenses.

The E-M5's body is fully weather sealed, and if you opt to buy the kit we reviewed, which includes the sealed M.Zuiko 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 ED lens ($499.99 if purchased separately), you've got a camera that you can take outdoors in almost any type of weather and shoot without worry. There aren't a lot of interchangeable lens cameras on the market that offer sealed body and sealed lens options—the only others that we've tested are the Olympus E-5 ($1,699.99 body only, 3 stars) and the Pentax K-5 ($1,249.95, 3.5 stars)—neither of which can match the E-M5's compact design.