Thread resurrection, sorry. I've just got my new EPL1 from the sorting office on the way to work.
I unpacked it on the station (careful to keep my penknife concealed from view, as the staff can get very touchy about that kind of thing), spent half an hour on the train with the manual, working through the settings, and was ready to shoot by the time I got off at London Bridge.
Ok, so it helps that I've read a lot of detailed reviews of pen series cameras in the mags and online, and I've watched a good few videos about the EPL1 on Youtube, so i had a bit of a headstart (as well as a couple of preconceptions which may not be correct).
First impressions: OK, it's plastic, and it's not the EP5 with VF4 I lust after, but it gets me into the Micro four thirds game, and with Olympus, too. I think that a number of the many Lumix products are better than the 'equivalent' Oly offering (GX7, with it's EVF, beats the EP5, I have to admit), but there's an aesthetic angle, too.
I've skimmed through the iAuto settings out of curiosity. Now, like most cameras, including a top end Nikon SLR, this can be used out of the box as a P&S (and why not, if that's what suits you?). But the iAuto is a bit of a nudge to help make better photos by extending creative control without having to know about technical stuff like aperture, ISO, depth of field, etc. As an aside, I am amused by how many lenses and cameras are now advertised for the quality of their 'blur' these days. If you get into the iAuto functions, I suppose it's a small push off the branch to get you to fly when you run out of branch. I hope it does encourage more people to think about their images, and get into taking some control.
But it's not for me. And the joy is that I can completely ignore it. It's just a redundant stop on my mode dial. Probably like the Art filters. I've shot with the grainy B/W which isn't as bad as I'd feared, and the sepia setting (I've sometimes used sepia in post processing, and I probably still will, based on the output in camera, which didn't look great on the camera screen. Pop art I'm unlikely to touch, and I can conceive of taking maybe a couple in the diorama setting for the novelty value. But I don't feel a camera is bereft without them.
Scenes, similarly, I used occasionally on the G11, mainly for speed if a situation changed, but, quite frankly, that's not going to get much use from me.
PASM is where the action is (I don't do video, and I can't see myself wanting to). I was pleased to find how easy the settings were to manage, even the Manual, which is right fiddly with the Canon, to the extent that I rarely used it at all. I'm likely to be spending time with AP.
Easy to hand are the flash settings (though it won't happen at all unless you pop up the alien in the corner. Good.), exposure compensation, AF area (crude, but effective, though you can't specify a 'third' point, disappointingly), and self-timer, which I use a lot less than I used to.
Gripes I heard about this camera in advance were these:
Slow focus - well, in a short session, I didn't notice anything amiss with this, but I have to admit that it was one of the Canon's weak points, so I'm comparing with a compact, not, say, a DSLR. Certainly faster than my 35mm AF cameras, but so it should be. I'm OK with it. It did hunt rather in close up, which I'll watch out for.
Plastic body - well, yeah, it's hard to deny. That is a metal front plate, and the rest is plastic, but it feels pretty robust. I did notice a slight movement somewhere as i walked with it in my hand, and I think it was something in the lens. Nothing to worry about, but a bit distracting. I do wonder about how these cameras will manage the long telephotos, lightweight though they are, and legacy glass attached to the front. I'd be worried about the tripod socket breaking loose in its mounting, even if this sounds a bit irrational. It manages the kit lens admirably, of course, and I aim to be using the 17/2.8 in the future, which is absolutely tiny, so it's barely going to be an issue. Even the second zoom - 40-150 - offers a 300mm 35mm equivalent, so, with that in the bag, I'll be able to do the amount of birding I ever do (need to book a trip to the Wetlands Centre as soon as I've saved up for that zoom). Last night, as I was going to catch a train, a Junkers Ju-52 flew low over the Thames, and I was sad that I only had the Canon to catch it with. Ironically, with this kit lens, I've got a much shorter tele, but if I get the other zoom, I'd have had a good lens for aviaiton as well (assuming I could have found somewhere to steady myself)
The body, while quite small (slightly shorter, wider and shallower than the Canon), is easy to hold, and the grip is well positioned and comfortable. From the aeshtetic POV, I'm glad I got the black one (there were a lot of white cameras on ebay, and, quite frankly, I'd have bought the cheapest decent one even if it were yellow).
And the menus - OK, fair cop. There's a lot of menus. Page after page of them. And, while there's some logic to them, the detail seems unnecessary, packed as they are with features I can't imagine ever needing. But I might. let's see. Does no harm that they are there, I suppose.
No control wheels feels limiting, until I remember that the Canon one turned and turned to little effect a lot of the time, and manual focussing with it would get your finger dizzy. As I mentioned, the key features (for me) are near to hand, and easy to set, especially with two reprogrammable buttons. Again, I'd love an EP5, but that ain't gonna happen. Yet.
One thing which had worried me was that hyooge red button right underneath where my thumb sits. I really really really didn't want to start recording a video by accident when I was close to a 'decisive moment'. But I've reprogrammed it to face detection, which I can use on and off with street shooting, so I'm OK with that. If I choose to do video, I'll dig in the menus for it.
Speed of shooting: Could be a big issue. To get going, you have to release the lens, which is tricky at the moment with my arm in a sling (oh yeah, all this will be better when my shoulder heals), remove a lens cap, and switch on the body. The body start up is quick, so long as you remember to turn your lens all the way across at least to 14, but that's three processes, compared to my 35SP's, er, none. 😀 The X10 has a lens cap to remove and a lens barrel to turn (no catch), which wins that contest. I left the lens opened and the body off when walking around, switching on as I started to line up a shot, and that was a decent compromise.
Another point on speed of shooting. If using the Art filters, be sure to have somewhere comfortable to sit while you wait for the image to write to the card. Well, OK, it's not quite that bad, but it could be tedious.
Something happened this morning which I haven't experienced for a while. Someone ducked to get out of a shot (they weren't in it anyway). I wonder if I've just gone from 'another tourist' to 'serious photographer' merely because I have a lens sticking out of the camera body? I don't shoot SLRs partly because of the bulk, which makes it a fag carrying them, and partly because they are so obtrusive. I hope the Pen doesn't show up so much. I guess this will reduce with the pancake lens instead of the zoom.
I need to think about how I shoot. Two of the main reasons I got the Canon were: Optical viewfinder (no vf built into EPL1) and the tilt/close LCD screen (fixed screen on EPL1). I like m43 because it gives me the flexibility to shoot a wide variety of styles and conditions with one machine, while (I hope) managing the middle bit of what I mainly use a camera for very well.
The proof is in the pudding, i suppose, so:
tl;dr: Nice new toy. Wait for the photos. 😉
