Olympus E-P1 top view.

First Impressions

From the moment that I took this camera out of the box, I was impressed. The build quality is fantastic (lots of metal) and the styling is spot on. It’s the small manual digital camera that I have always wanted, and it has a big sensor which is icing on the cake. Like most people, I thought that I was going to miss the viewfinder, and that has not been the case. The LCD is bright, and easy to compose with, and its a breeze to manual focus with as well.

Subsequent to purchasing the E-P1, I found out that the Four-Thirds and the micro Four-Thirds mount used by the PEN are the most adaptable mounts on the market. I have since purchased and been busy playing with my Pentax K-mount to m4/3 mount adaptor, and its a lot of fun.

Usage

The PEN is really easy to use, thanks to the smart button layout, and the dual control wheels for aperture and shutter speed. The menu system is intuitive and easy to use while shooting.

Auto-focus is significantly improved thanks to the latest firmware update, and even before the update, AF was better than most big Internet camera reviewers would lead you to believe.

Olympus E-P1 rear

While the LCD is good, it could be a lot better, but I think Olympus put a lower-resolution LCD in the PEN to help with battery life, and for what I use the PEN for, its fine for my shooting needs.

The nice thing about only having an LCD for composition, is it allows you to use some angles that you wouldn’t otherwise consider using. I can put the PEN right on the ground, compose and shoot without having to lay in the dir to get a shot.

The 14-42 Kit Lens

The kit lens surprised me. It was sharper than I thought it would be, and it has some pretty nice bokeh. Its such a compact lens, its easy to under estimate its abilities.

Dandelion Head, taken with 14-42mm kit lens

I do however feel that Olympus should be selling the E-P1 with a 25mm 1.4 lens, (50mm equiv). I think the PEN would really excel and impress with a nice fast normal prime. Panasonic does make a 20mm 1.7, and Olympus does make a 17mm f2.8 (34mm equiv). I plan to try both at some point (hopefully) and purchase one of them for my daily camera carrying needs.

E-P1 with 14-42 Kit Lens

Image Quality

If you are going to buy a digital camera without an on-board flash, its going to need some decent low-light capabilities, and the PEN does really well for a smaller than APS-C sensor up to ISO 1600. If needed, you can increase the ISO to 3200, and 6400 ISO, the images are noisy, but still usable. The noise in the high ISO images from the PEN is actually quite pleasing, it has an almost film-like quality, which works well when converted to black and white.

Its 12mp I feel is just about perfect, the images are a bit smaller than the .DNG raw files out of my K20D, so its nice to save on some space where I can.

Conclusion

If you are considering a PEN, you won’t be disappointed. I think its a great camera to help a beginner learn composition, as its allows you a bit more freedom to compose. Its also a bit easier to adjust exposure in manual mode, which will take some of the fear away from new manual mode shooters.

After three weeks, I’m very happy with mine. It has made photography fun, and its a great source of inspiration. In the short time that I have had my PEN, I find that I am making better photographs, and trying new angles that I would have never tried before.

Happy shooting.

The Cauldron in Coal Harbour

more photos after the break.

Its a shame that such a prominent symbol of the Olympics had to be behind a fence, but I also belive that this is one of the few, if not only times that the Cauldron has been at street level.

I wasn’t able to go into any of the pavilions as the lines were many hours long (I didn’t have enough time to wait). Pictured above is the lineup for the Royal Canadian Mint Pavilion, where you can hold one of the Vancouver 2010 Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals. This particular line was just over a 6 hour wait.

Granville Street was opened exclusivly to foot traffic, and became home to many different public art installations. Pictured above is one of many “trees” with lanterns decorated by children hanging from it.

Another view of the cauldron, which will become a permanent fixture on the Vancouver water front. Thanks to a joint deal between Terasen Gas, and the BC Provincial government, the cauldron will burn on indefinitely after the Paralympics concludes. Hopefully I’ll be able to find a good angle with a long lens to get a shot of the cauldron from the north shore, or even stanley park.

I was a little disappointed that the rings were not in colour, as they are capable of changing colours, but since its been running for a few days, its likely less distracting to drivers to leave it in white.

If you’re in Richmond, or near the airport, take a drive around the loop upto the departures, and you’ll get an impressive view of the rings, and they are very very bright.

My new “darkroom” is now my Ubuntu desktop PC, and my mobile darkroom… my macbook equipped with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I have really enjoyed my switch to digital, and being a techie, I am more inclined to sit in front of my computer and edit a few photos when I have spare time. So I feel this is a win-win for me.

If you are curious, here were the parts that I had in my darkroom.

• Saunders/LPL 6700 Dichroic Enlarger
• Rodenstock Rodagon 50mm F2.8 lens
• Saunders IC Enlarger timer
• Print trays
• Film Development tanks
• Boxes of paper
• misc. chemicals.

Next post in my photography series will be my review of the SMC Pentax DA* 50-135/F2.8 Lens.

In fact, it leads the number 2 lens by more than double the images. That’s an overwhelming win for this lens, and despite what dpreview recently said, this lens produces some of the most pleasing images, even wide open. I imaging my results are quite a bit different than theirs since I don’t photograph resolution charts

This post is my attempt at a real world impression, not a review. Reviews photographing test charts, and other scientific measurements do nothing to show weather a lens will be considered good, or useful.

More after the jump…

Since I got the Pentax FA 50mm/1.4 it has been on my camera more than any other lens. I used it a lot when I shot film, and it was the first lens that I mounted on my K100DSuper when I got it home. On a Pentax dSLR, it has an equivelent feild of view of a 75mm lens on a 35mm film body. If I had been asked 5 years ago if I would ever use a 75mm for anything other than portraits the answer would have been no.

I use my 50mm so much it leads the number 2 lens by more than twice the exposures. That’s an overwhelming win for this lens, and despite what dpreview recently said, this lens produces some of the most pleasing images, even wide open. I imaging my results are quite a bit different than theirs since I don’t photograph resolution test charts

Despite the 50mm focal length being duplicated in three of my zoom lenses(DA*16-50/2.8, DA*50-135/2.8, DA18-55/3.8-5.6), there is something about working with a prime lens that seems to force me to think differently with my camera, the extra speed helps too!

I’ve started to organize my photos on flickr into sets based on the lens that took them, you can see more of my shots from the FA50/1.4 here

Whats your most used lens?

He was a crowd hit at the Winter 2008 convocation ceremony. He even wore his “Holmes on Homes” brand cover alls, and steel toed boots undeneth his robe, which is pretty funny.

Using the set of Alkaline batteries included with the camera I was able to take approximately 90 shots with about 60-75% flash usage.

I also picked up two sets of 4 Energizer Lithium Ion single use batteries. I plan to keep these as the emergency set in my camera bag. I expect this set to perform close to, or exceed the anticipated number of shots in the manual. If I were to take a long trip, I would also consider picking up a set or two of CRV-3 Lithium batteries as these are supposed to yield 1000 – 1100 shots.

Since they were readily available, I picked up some Energizer 2500mAh NiHM Batteries and a charger. So far, these batteries have worked well for my needs. Typical charge time is about 8.5 hours with the supplied charger. The first two charges were yielded very few pictures, but it looks like the third charge is the sweet spot. I have four sets of the Energizer NiHM’s and all three have taken about three charges to achieve normal usage. Some sets have not been charged beyond the third charge as I am still working my way through them (There have not been too many sunny weekends where I live so far).

To sum things up, the Energizer sets appear to be working quite well. These batteries are affordable, and easily available. The average cost for a set of these batteries ranges from $14 – $20 Canadian, which is comparable to a set of single use Energizer Lithium AA’s. Time will ultimately tell how reliable these batteries are, but so far, I don’t have too much to loose. It should be noted that re-chargeable Lithium ION batteries are not recommended for use in the Pentax K100D Super, the manual claims that this is due to the voltage characteristics of these batteries. In normal use, I don’t find the limitations of NiHM AA battery technology to be a problem, so far I have not needed to break out my emergency set of single use lithium’s, and I don’t expect to any time soon.

If you have been disappointed with the Energizer, Duracell, or other readily available batteries, I would look at trying a set of Sanyo Eneloops, which are available at Costco (last time I checked). These batteries come highly recommended from many forums and photography groups around the Internet. I plan to try a set of these batteries sometime soon.