Uk Olympus Photo Safari Group E-P1 answer you!

Brian Mosley from Photo Safari Group had the chance to play with the E-P1 for one week. You can read his experiences here.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=32258456&changemode=1

In short:

-It’s a camera you’d want to wear in public – I don’t have that feeling for my G1.

– Both kit lenses are lightweight, well made plastic construction… optically the 14-42 has the edge for sharpness, but the 17mm f2.8 is so much more fun, low profile and I love the 35mm FOV.

– Olympus seem to have revisited the colour/tone curve since the E-30/E-620 – the darker areas seem richer – I think it’s a marked improvement.

– autofocus not that bad

-very accurate metering

– The E-P1 is softer and lighter sounding than the G1… perhaps 50% to 75% the volume of the G1.

And a lot more to read here: http://www.ukphotosafari.org/e-p1-diary-index/

Something else, look at this beatiful “red” E-P1!

click on picture to enlarge!

Olympus and Panasonic www trends

trends

Noisycameras made a Canon-Nikon-Leica trendspotting based on tumble. We made it better by adding Olympus and Panasonic. In the chart above you see what people is searching for in the tumble blog network. Olympus had his moment of glorious around June 16th.

Then I tried to add the “E-P1” search term and here are the results:

e-p1trend

But of course the most complete trends are the one coming from google:

googleThe “A” marks the E-P1 release day.

I suggest Olympus to release a camera every month in order to reach the canon search volume :)

Olympus E-P1 gets his first firmware upgrade!

Olympus has announced a firmware update for its new Pen camera that will allow the device to operate more effectively with the following MFT lenses from Panasonic:
-Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8
-Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6
The firmware update for Panasonic’s 14-140mm MFT “superzoom” increases overall performance stability between body and lens.

Similarly, the 14-45mm firmware update improves auto focus performance for still and movie recording, improves the stability of optical image stabilization during movie recording and decreases audible noise while adjusting the aperture while movie recording.

source: digitalcamerareview

(FT 4) UPDATED-> Leica to join the MicroFourThirds world with his lenses!


Two different sources confirmed us that Leica won’t make any MicroFourThirds camera…for now! But “it seems” ;) they made an agreement with Panasonic to develop special MicroFourThirds lenses. Both sources told us this lenses will be very expensive….surprise surprise :)
Do we have some timeline? Yes Q4 2009 or Q1 2010 you will see the first Leica MFT lens
Do we know wich kind of lens Leica will offer us at first? No! But you know we are working on it…

UPDATE: One more (and new) source confirms that Leica will make few (expensive) MFT lenses. (FT3) Timeline: between November 2009 and March 2010 Leica should release the first prime lens.

P.S.: This last update cost me a very good deal in ebay. I received the email from the new source 5 minutes before the end of the ebay bid. I have been so excited that I answered him but not quick enough to go back to ebay and place my offer :(

E-P1: JPG vs processed RAW files

Good morning!

Look how good the High-ISO images are when RAW files has been processed using Olympus Studio 2.3. Take a look here.

One more thing:
I will get my E-P1 in more or less two weeks. I will compare the E-P1 to the Nikon D700, Panasonic LX3 and analogue medium format camera. But you know my philosophy, this is just a “game” that in fact has little to do with photography. Pixel do not matter!
I choose the E-P1 for my Asian 2 months journey simply because it easy to carry with me all the tme and I need no more than two tiny lenses for my job (the 17mm 2.8 and the Voigtländer 35mm 1.4). Oh!…and feel free to send me YOUR first E-P1 picture!

P.S.: Again, so you know some good and cheap camera-lens store in Bejing? :)