Olympus Pen EP-1 - I've been playing with it.

[Larky]

Hello.

Well, I had the chance to have a play with the new Oly EP-1, with both the zoom and the pancake mounted. Sadly I was not allowed to use my own card to keep the pictures, I wanted to post the results here. My review is short.

1> It's a very handsome camera, perfect in the hand, incredibly light (too light I think).

2> With the pancake and optical viewfinder it fit my face well.

3> The focus is useless. It's ok for people who'd use a Canon Ixus as their only camera, but for people used to a good DSLR or an RF, it's slow. It hunts and tries to be clever, I could not find a way to dumb down the AF.

4> The lack of knobs and buttons, and the inclusion of whirly wheels and stuff and bits makes it tricky sometimes to set the controls manually. I doubt most of the buyers will use it this way, and so I guess it's not a major consideration for Olympus. But for me it's a pain, after using my Contax G1 for 4 days solid using the little Oly felt cumbersome and slow.

Will I buy one? No. Too gimmicky, too light (I get the feeling if you dropped it it would explode) and too slow.

But it sure does look nice. 🙂

 

[Peter_Jones]

I love how the camera looks but not the handling/usability. My money (if I had any spare) would be spent on Panasonic's G1. Shame really as I was looking forward to it. Image quality on test shots seems very good though 🙂

 

[Trius]

This is a bit disappointing, but I am glad for the first-hand report. It would concern me more if we hadn't had Watanabe's statement that future models will continue pro bodies. We shall wait and see what that means ...

 

[peterm1]

For me the real deal breaker is the lack of optical viewfinder with focus confirmation. If it had this it might be worth considering for its ability to mount other lenses with adapters (Leica M!!) but without this when in use, you are limited to holding it at arms length like a bozo and using the rear screen (assuming it even has focus confirmation via the rear screen or are you limited to guessing???)....... No, not for me I am afraid. If I were to go down that route, why not get a cam with a fixed lens like perhaps the Sigma DP1 or 2? Although its quirky it seems to produce great results. Or the Canon G10 which although the sensor size is smaller is a great all round camera,

 

[astroman]

I had consider this camera as a high quality point and shoot.But for $1000 and less than glowing first hand member reviews.I just picked up a G10 new with 8 gig card for $475 CND.
I think the G10 although not perfect either for less than half the price is good enough for me

 

[willie_901]

Thanks for the useful and enlightening report.

Very close... but no cigar. I'll wait for the next micro 4/3 offering.