43 Rumors

I use pl1 one year lenght. It make me be nervus many many times because of AF speed and generally slow working. Before buying i read almost all reviews about pl1. But later i learn very painful ! This reviews don’t tell you true. Photo quailty good but not very very good. ISO performance good but not very good. I saw many times 200 ISO and noisy photos and this is another detail about pl1 make me be nervus.

I have used 4/3 stuff for couple of years before moving on to mft. Therefore I was used to the menus and general usability of E-PL1 before I bought it. Reason for me moving to mft was the overall size of the system. Previously I had to carry all my stuff in a large backpack. Now the whole system fits in a small shoulder bag (camera+lens, macro, tele, 50mm prime and accessories). The camera is with me more than before and that is only a good thing.

Pictures from E-PL1 are excellent! JPEGs are so good, that I rarely have to use Lightroom sliders for anything. They only make the pictures worse

Sharpness of the sensor is amazing, ISO is excellent up to 800, 1600 is still very good. JPEG output is very customizable in terms of colour, sharpness and contrast. I prefer a little warm and saturated colours and use iEnhance level 1 picture mode.

I am not a big fan of the zoom lens. It takes good pictures, but the construction feels so weak that I am constantly afraid I’ll break it. CPL-filter is unusable on this lens, since the front element turns when focusing. It turns so easily, that turning the CPL makes the whole thing turn. Then the focus motor will kick in and turns the CPL back -> fail. I am waiting for a quality standard zoom from either Olympus or Panasonic.

Besides this lens issue, the camera is great. One missing feature is the thumb wheel, but pressing the buttons is not that hard. Casual users won’t even notice the missing wheel.

Price of the E-PL1 has dropped now that E-PL2 appeared. The IQ is identical on both cameras. If you don’t need the high res screen and rotating dial I’d say go for the E-PL1 and save a couple hundred $/€.

+ IQ!
+ IBIS
+ built in flash can be bounced from ceiling and triggers Oly remote flashes
+ size
+ price/performance ratio

- zoom buttons are a bit spongy
- screen is usable but not great
- kit zoom build quality issues
- some people think it’s ugly. I couldn’t care less!

For the cost of a high end compact, the possible .

The body is of decent quality. It’s not a tough SLR skin, nor it it the armor of the ep1/ep2/gf1. It is however sturdy enough to endure the rigors of daily shooting.

The lens is very small and light. Compared to any SLR kit lens I’ve tried, it’s insanely small. Sharpness is not compromised. There are a few lenses which were reported to incur a blur from shake induced as a result of looseness from the collapsing feature, but I’ve not notices any such issues. It’s made well for plastic. It’s not as tough as all metal lenses, but as far as kits go, it’s fine.

The camera is trivial to use. Some of the menu options are obscure, but once used to it it doesn’t take to to access bracketing/noise/antishake.

Being the budget camera, it’s low on features compared to the other PEN style cameras – ep1/ep2/gf1. No remote trigger, 1/2000 max shutter, low res lcd, no viewfinder like the ep2. A lot of these don’t affect most people.

Some features it does have – bounceable flash – the ep1/ep2 have no flash at all. The epl1 flash can angle up to give a nice soft bounce flash effect. Wireless flash trigger – EPL1 can connect and trigger Olympus FL36R and FL50R flash wirelessly. Port for VF2 – accessory port can take one of the best electronic viewfinders in the industry. IS in the body – Makes ANY lens, even legacy lenses have image stabilization.

IQ is excellent. I don’t think the sensor is great by any means, but it is capable. The JPEGs produced are extremely good for what the sensor puts out in RAW. There is noise but it is handled fairly well, while maintaining details. Color and white-balance are very good.

At $400-$450 it’s a good buy, whether it’s the first micro-four-thirds camera you get, or if it’s the backup body you require.

All in all, it’s a relatively cheap camera, that does have some great lenses, can adapt almost any lens with the right adapter, and it’s small and portable capable of going with you anywhere, yet delivering very high quality pictures.

I bought a second hand Lumix G1 to experiment with the μ43 system and lenses. I liked everything about it except the EVF. I need a good one for my tired, old eyes to focus and compose with. Like many, I’m not used to holding a camera at arms length and trying to frame/focus.

The μ43 concept is great. The G1 user interface is well-thought out; the lenses — both Panasonic and Olympus — are adequate to good.

Two weeks after I bought the G1, I was in a Portland Camera store. An Olympus rep was showcasing the PEN system. I tried out E-PL1 with the accessory EVF and found it excellent. They gave me a good deal, so, frustrated with the G1 EVF, I bought one.

Since then I have been working with the two. Compared to the G1, the Olympus UI stinks, but the E-PL1 images are excellent, as are the G1′s. But the Olympus menus? Whew. Two examples:

• Bracketing is completely illogical. You set the type of bracketing and the exposure range in menu 2, but there is no setting to switch from single exposure or multiple exposure to bracketing exposure as there is in the G1. The upshot is once you set “bracketing” in the soft menus, every shot — no matter the type of bracketing selected — is bracketed. Unlike the G-series, bracketing cannot be invoked by a switch: single shot, burst, bracket.

This means you have to delve into the convoluted menu structure each time you want to bracket; there is no bracket switch available.

• The exposure controls are almost impossible to manage with the camera to your eye, unlike the G1 that has the easy-to-operate index finger button/dial. Dealing with four buttons instead of one is really a user’s nightmare. Designers could have, should have done better.

VF-2 recommendation: The VF-2 offers high quality viewing, but the tilt feature isn’t very useful. You have to bend over and bring the camera right up to your eye. It would be much more useful if there was a magnifying accessory that would allow you to fire off candid shots with the camera at waist level, framing the image with a quick downward glance.

As it is I don’t see much point in having it articulate. At eye level the VF-2 is great, but to have to bend over and look down in the VF isn’t very useful. As soon as it’s more than three inches away from the eye, you can’t focus or compose.

Now they’re coming out with a E-PL2, a camera that doesn’t seem to have resolved the software menu issues. In fact, it seems like an afterthought. What’s the purpose of the E-PL2? To get E-PL1 users to switch? E-PL1 images were fine and the camera was small. But what about the ease-of-use? What about taking it to the next level?

There seems to be wide acceptance of the μ43 format, but no clear strategy on where to take it. Perhaps, then, the GH2 — once it’s available — is the ultimate μ43 camera, at least for the next four months.

Nevertheless, it would be nice to have a small, carry-around μ43 camera that combined the strengths of the GF1 and the E-PL1/2. One with a high resolution, built-in EVF, the more complete Lumix feature set, and easy to use buttons and menus.

It would also be nice to have a fast, fixed aperture 12-70mm zoom. Yes, it would be expensive, but at least it would take the μ43 format forward, instead of all the overlapping, double-duty lenses Panasonic and Olympus have churned out so far. Also a sports zoom, something that would demonstrate the capabilities of the μ43 format. Is μ43 a “hobby” format or can it do everything — to a certain extent — that the larger formats can do?

The verdict is still out.

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