Olympus E-P1: My Random Thoughts, Day by Day

[d2creative]

So mainly out of curiousity and the need for a new "point and shoot", I picked up the new Olympus E-P1 with the 14-42 kit lens. It arrived last night.

The purpose of this thread is just to collect my random thoughts, test shots, gripes, praise, etc as I explore this camera in order to help anyone that may be interesting in picking one up or at least learning more about it before committing. Some comments will be very generic, others will probably relate to what I'm personally looking for in a second camera. Note that I'm going into this with hesitation and subjectiveness with no pre-determined expectations. I really don't know what to expect from this little bugger, but I'll be updating this thread as I find out more.

Feel free to comment. I'm not going to argue for or against anything, I'm just going to lay out the facts and my own personal feelings. Part of the reason for this exploration is to decide whether or not I keep it.

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Day 1

Removed it from the box and all I could think of was WOW, this is a SERIOUS camera. Definitely not a P&S in form. It's BIG. Bigger than it looked in pics. And heavy! Definitely a solid, well built feeling camera. Feels like a tank. The lens is light, I'm talking about just the body here. Lots of real metal. Buttons feel solid. Some buttons feel a little bit hard to press due to being next to other raised surfaces, even with my small hands. The mode dial on top gives me the same feeling, it's a bit too recessed. Not deal breakers, just something I noticed. The screen is nice and large.

Charged the battery, that took about 2.5hrs. Popped it in, with memory card and turned it on. Starts right up and takes about half a second to run the dust removal for the sensor. Does this every time you start it up and it's done before you could even think about shooting. Setting the date/time is easy. Menu system seems intuitive enough, I've never used an Olympus camera before.

For the moment I tossed the manual aside. I threw the camera into Manual mode using the top dial mentioned earlier. Within seconds I was changing aperture/shutterspeed/iso with the hard buttons/dials on the back of the camera. Also figured out how to switch to manual focus. When you begin to focus, the screen automatically gives you a 7x or 10x zoom on your subject making focusing much easier. Still a little awkward for me, I've never used live view to focus, only real viewfinders, but it was doable.

First shot of the cat/dogs/flowers? Nahhhhh.... lets jump right in!
I dragged my alien bees outside for some fill in the bright sunlight, set up the tripod, pocket wizards, and brought my D700 with 24-70 f/2 along to play, too. All settings the same on both cameras. Except I realized later the E-P1 was set to JPG-Normal instead of Fine. Overall the micro 4/3 E-P1 held up pretty well next to the full frame D700. You can see some noise or jpg artifacts zoomed in at 100% but remember the resolution was set to the highest.
In the pics below the EP1 is on top and the D700 on the bottom. I then later took another pics with just the E-P1 when the light was diffused and had some fun processing it.

NOTE: Shooting outdoors, in bright sunlight, the screen looked BLACK when the camera was set to the correct exposure. I had to open up the aperture to brighten the screen enough to manual focus, then close the aperture back up to shoot. Not cool, especially when there is no viewfinder. But in reality, I normally don't manual focus my p&s cameras. Wait a minute... is this a p&s camera?


EP1-top D700-bottom


100% crop


E-P1 jpg with heavy processing. Just fooling around, this one doesn't really tell you much.



NEXT UP: Usability.
So what if the pic quality looks good almost any camera can take a decent pic these days... the real question is what is it like to use it. To be continued...

[Jake]

Cool!

Could you post a picture of the EP-1 next to the D700 to give a little scale of the size?

[d2creative]

Jake, here ya go. D700 next to EP-1.



d2creative added 177 Minutes and 37 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

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DAY 2: Delving into the EP-1

Man, this is a confusing camera. And not so much the camera itself (more on that later) but more on how to categorize it! What is this thing?! It's not a point and shoot. At least not in the sense of how we normally think of them... which is portable or maybe a better term would be "pocketable". The only pocket this thing is going in is a cargo pant pocket and if you do that, you'll be walking funny. Or a large jacket pocket. I think this is definitely more of a neck/shoulder strap camera, but one you could sling around all day and not really think about. But back to the P&S classification... you can literally "point and shoot" it. It also has all the fluffy consumer gadgets and doo-dads like scene mode. And then as you probably already heard they take that one step further and introduce us to Art Filters. There are six of these and basically what they do is just apply filters in camera rather than you messing with them yourself afterwards. You get to see the result right there. It does seem to take about 3x as long for the image to pop up on the screen, you get a progress bar as it processes the image. You can also add the effects to pics you took earlier under one of the normal modes. Before I bought the camera I laughed at just the idea of this. How dare they put such trivial nonsense on such a "high-end" camera. But uhhh.... i have to confess.... i've already used them! If anything they are interesting to play with. Some actually turn out pretty good. So besides these scene modes and art filters there is also a lot of the typical consumer p&s features like noise reduction, noise filters, face detection, automatic focus point detection, blah blah blah. Luckily all of this stuff is able to be turned off via the menus.

So now, if it's not really a typical point and shoot, is it a dslr? Well... not really. What's good is it has a pretty decent size sensor. That's not your typical p&s. Start up time is pretty much instant as I mentioned in my first post. It has internal image stabilization which can be nice. If you turn off some of the automatic crap and set the AEL/AFL button to pre-focus, the shutter is pretty instant. And I almost forgot! The shutter sound is AWESOME. Sounds like a real shutter click from a film camera. Feels good too. This is one of the best things about the camera... the tactile feel and sound of the shutter giving a good solid click. Autofocus on the other hand is kinda dismal. Don't know if this is the lens or what. And trying to focus in low light without a focus assist lamp is near impossible. No viewfinder? Crap. The screen gets really grainy in low light. So now even manual focusing is tough. This is going to take more investigation. Taking pics at dinner in nice restaurants is going to prove to be challenging at the very least. Image quality is pretty darn impressive in optimum conditions. But a real dslr is going to leave the EP-1 in the dust in anything but. So I can't classify this as a dslr replacement either. I'm wondering if Olympus did the smartest thing of all... create an entirely new category forcing consumers to now own THREE cameras! Bravo Oly..... bra-vo.

Next up, I'll probably discuss usability. What it takes to make this camera shine and what it takes to get there including how many hairs you have to pull out. Wait a minute, i have no hair. Heeeerrrrrrre doggy doggy doggy.... be a good dog....

Meanwhile, here's a few pics from today. You can see bigger versions on my flickr set.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluelem...7621785054470/

[luis_relampago]

Thanks Dennis I want a nice camera for my Dad and when I saw that olympus was going to redo my dad's favorite camera the Pen D2 I was ready but I was waiting for a review here. Once again thanx! I see it renders pretty nice images I am sold.

[d2creative]

No problem, Luis... glad to be of help.
It's not all roses, though. I do have more gripes. Maybe later today I can get into that a little deeper.

Meanwhile, I found this Crumpler bag laying around that I got as a gift and never used. Ends up it fits the EP-1 like a glove! I didn't want to spend money on a bag until I decided if I'm going to keep the EP-1 so I was happy to find something that will work for now. It's the Bundle Large.
More pics of the bag are on my flickr set.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluelem...7621785054470/

[groovyone]

Thanks for the write up, although it may be misleading. You should put a disclaimer that samples are from a talented user. Results may vary.

[rfortson]

Heh heh! I answered your post on DPR. I didn't know you were on here as well.

Very nice shots, and a nice write up. I've been having a blast with mine since receiving it last week. It's just a very fun camera to use, and image quality is very nice.

[d2creative]

Day 3

I'm starting to get used to this camera but I still have certain gripes.

1. It's very complicated. Getting decent pics doesn't seem to be as easy as taking it out of the box, turning it on and shooting. I've had to go in and turn a lot of things off that get in the way and slow things down. One thing that took a little while to figure out is Olympus turns off the whole customization part of the menu system as the default setting so I had to turn that one in order to access a whole array of custom settings.

2. The manual for this thing is the worst manual in the history of manuals. It loves to tell you how to do things without telling you how to do them. Confused? Welcome to my world.

3. Autofocus isn't exactly it's strong suit. No AF assist light makes focusing in dim light pretty tough when it's hunting for contrast that isn't there. What about manual focus you say? Well sure, that would be nice if a) it had a viewfinder or b) the screen wasn't so dark and grainy in low light. There is a feature you can turn on called screen boost or something like that but then you lose the exposure part of the screen if you are trying to shoot in manual mode.

4. No viewfinder. Nuff said.

The Good Stuff:

1. Image quality is tops. You can really see the difference in sensors. Let me illustrate with two different shots. The purple flower was from the D-Lux 4, the Yellow flower from the EP-1. Look at that sweeeet bokeh on the EP-1.





Also, I should note that all pics so far are jpgs. I have not shot any raw yet because I would have to use Oly's own software and I would rather wait for Lightroom to come out with their update. So right now I am noticing some noise at 100% but no biggie.

2. The overall feel. It feels good. Feels weighty and robust and well balanced. Even the shutter feels good.

3. The super menu or whatever they call it. Hit the ok button and menu pops up that gives you access to almost all setting you would need to change. It's very quick.

That's all I've got for today.
Here's another pic taken when I arrived at work this morning.

[angiem357]

I really like all these posts. Please keep it up as you develop a relationship with this camera! :) I have a Stylus P&S, which led me to my e510, and I was looking at the EP1 on the Oly website thinking, "I wonder..." so I'm enjoying this.

You took a picture of my arch-nemesis: The Diabolical and Evil Orangey-Corally-Salmony Trumpet Vine. Well, your pic is BW, but it's poking through the fence with the same sinister sneakiness as MY vines. Grr. Hate is bubbling. Is that indeed what it is?

I look forward to further updates!

[JRS11]

Dennis, is that your bike (just wondering if you are a Rivendell guy?). I have a custom an AR for my daughter that is too small for me and two Bleriots..

Joel

Originally Posted by d2creative

Day 3

I'm starting to get used to this camera but I still have certain gripes.

1. It's very complicated. Getting decent pics doesn't seem to be as easy as taking it out of the box, turning it on and shooting. I've had to go in and turn a lot of things off that get in the way and slow things down. One thing that took a little while to figure out is Olympus turns off the whole customization part of the menu system as the default setting so I had to turn that one in order to access a whole array of custom settings.

2. The manual for this thing is the worst manual in the history of manuals. It loves to tell you how to do things without telling you how to do them. Confused? Welcome to my world.

3. Autofocus isn't exactly it's strong suit. No AF assist light makes focusing in dim light pretty tough when it's hunting for contrast that isn't there. What about manual focus you say? Well sure, that would be nice if a) it had a viewfinder or b) the screen wasn't so dark and grainy in low light. There is a feature you can turn on called screen boost or something like that but then you lose the exposure part of the screen if you are trying to shoot in manual mode.

4. No viewfinder. Nuff said.

The Good Stuff:

1. Image quality is tops. You can really see the difference in sensors. Let me illustrate with two different shots. The purple flower was from the D-Lux 4, the Yellow flower from the EP-1. Look at that sweeeet bokeh on the EP-1.





Also, I should note that all pics so far are jpgs. I have not shot any raw yet because I would have to use Oly's own software and I would rather wait for Lightroom to come out with their update. So right now I am noticing some noise at 100% but no biggie.

2. The overall feel. It feels good. Feels weighty and robust and well balanced. Even the shutter feels good.

3. The super menu or whatever they call it. Hit the ok button and menu pops up that gives you access to almost all setting you would need to change. It's very quick.

That's all I've got for today.
Here's another pic taken when I arrived at work this morning.

[d2creative]

Angie, no problem
I'm not sure what vine that is? The fence is new so the vine hasn't had a chance to flower or anything. There is tons of vines and other foliage behind that fence.

Joel, yup... that's one of my bikes. More pics are in my flickr account. Used to have a black Atlantis before this one.

[JRS11]

Dennis, I got into Rivendell bikes in the '90's due to a bad back and a desire to continue to ride (I used to participate heavily on the ibob list). It was ibob Douglas Brooks that turned me onto that site and Rivendell. I had the AR that is too small for me (it awaits my daughter), two customs until I got the third which is the one in my avatar (that is the first Joel Green, I asked Grant to pick the color and after a second Joel got one he named it Joel Green. He also rides a Joel Green). When I was in CA for measuring (I was there visiting friends), I thought Grant was going to kill me as he continued to push the bar to get my PB height, but the bike works perfectly for me. I had a Rambouillet but never built it up due to the very long TT, sold my Saluki for the same reason, the Beriot is perfect (my second one awaits building). Rivendells give me the upright position I need, I ride with Albatross bars, SunTour barcons like yours, and the Brooks saddle like yours without the Springs (the B-68 I believe). I shellac and still use cotten tape, friction shifters and fenders. My collection of NOS suntour parts is almost gone now but that is ok, I have what I want....It was wonderful for me to see your HH, thank for posting.

[d2creative]

Day 4

WTF?

Buried deep within the menu system i found a new setting for the JPG compression.
The default settings give you a choice of Large, Medium or Small and combined with those you get Fine, Normal or Basic. Sounds normal, right? Well I just found a new setting called Super Fine! Why in the world would they hide a setting that gives you better quality pics?! This is the kind of thing that is bugging the crap out of me with this camera. It just makes you wonder that the heck Oly is smoking.

Here's another pic taken this morning, but not with the Super Fine setting since I just found that a minute ago. This one is using the Soft Focus art filter. Something easily obtainable in Lightroom, but again... here it's done instantly. Nice if you need that sort of convenience and don't need to tweak the intensity of the filter.



d2creative added 124 Minutes and 49 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

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Here's another larger pic, shot at iso 3200.

[JRS11]

Dennis, I know we have talked about this, it was not really the menu so much as the inadequate manual that caused me to return the camera. I felt stupid because I could not follow how to customize the E-P1. In the end it probably was not for me, but geez, they sure made it hard for me to want to keep it, and it felt good in my hands, took reasonably good pics for me and I had no clue how to set it up. If it was not for the Super CCD well......and I never found that super fine options either. I did turn the noise to low, but it seems there was much I did not have time to find and for me if I have to work that hard it just was not worth it at this time. Keep us posted, your progress is very interesting.

[venchka]

How every good EP-1 should be dressed:





Try that with your G10 or D40.