Cheap Olympus Pen E-P1 Micro Four Thirds Digital SLR Camera

Beautiful camera, feels like something from the past. Too early to for this to be a photography review - and you'll plenty of those anyway. Beautifully made object, reminiscent of photography when it was film, chemicals and mechanical shutters. My wife said 'looks like my dad's camera from when i was a kid'. And it obviously takes great photos.

Moving up from a compact you'll find it very high quality, and the 'slow auto focus' won't seem too slow (it is a bit pedantic, going to infinite every time but you can trigger it manually to avoid that). It's great to take back control of aperture, depth of field, shutter speed. Personally i think the art filters are superfluous (you can do it on the computer better i guess). 720p video with image stabilizer is a wonderful bonus. Like rediscovering my earliest experiences in the 1970s with my first simple slr.

Buying this whetted my appetite for micro four thirds (i was already a four thirds user). I have since gone on to acquire the olympus e-m5. The e-p1 is beautifully made, lovely to look at and hold - a really classy piece of kit - and takes stunning pictures. What more can you want other than an evf, which was why i upgraded.

If you are used to using an lcd to compose, you probably won't need more than this camera. The friend who inherited it loves it.

Pros

• A great second camera for the more technical photographer
• Beautiful camera, feels like something from the past
• PEN EP-1 my point and shoot

Features of Olympus Pen E-P1 Micro Four Thirds Digital SLR Camera (14-42 mm Black Lens Kit) - Silver

• Extremely small, lightweight micro four thirds system digital camera with a stylish retro design
• SLR image quality with a high speed 12.3 megapixel live MOS sensor
• Art Filters, multi-exposure, wireless flash, multi-aspect
• High-performance built-in image stabiliser
• Excellent variety of digital lenses

Olympus E-N1 : Body, Silver + 14/42 black (N3592692)

Box Contains
Pen E-P1 Body (silver)ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm lens (black)BLS-1 Lithium Ion rechargeable batteryBCS-1 Battery ChargerUSB/Video Multi CableShoulder StrapOLYMPUS Master CD-ROMInstruction ManualWarranty Card

Lovely Camera.. Buying this whetted my appetite for micro four thirds (i was already a four thirds user). I have since gone on to acquire the olympus e-m5. The e-p1 is beautifully made, lovely to look at and hold - a really classy piece of kit - and takes stunning pictures. What more can you want other than an evf, which was why i upgraded. If you are used to using an lcd to compose, you probably won't need more than this camera. The friend who inherited it loves it. .

Pen Ep-1 My Point and Shoot. Well its not a dslr, but i can live with the images it takes. Not really a pocket camera, but it is more portable than my d3 or h3d. I use it with pocket wizard for flash photography. I could not use it for wedding photography, but i could live with it if i was a guest at a wedding.

Product Info

• Product Dimensions: 3.7 x 12.1 x 7 cm ; 336 g
• Boxed-product Weight: 1.2 Kg
• Batteries 1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)
• Item model number: Pen E-P1
• ASIN: B002CGS52K

Conclusion of Olympus Pen E-P1 Micro Four Thirds Digital SLR Camera

This is an inspiring camera for keen photographers who have a good technical knowledge of photography and of camera operation. If you want a small camera with some a level of semi-manual or full manual control that takes good photos straight from the camera with no post processing required then i would look elsewhere. Knowing what i know now i would pay the same for the pen as i would for a good quality prosumer dslr and if you are a keen photographer in the market for a second camera then it is highly recommended (see my detailed review). Overallthis is a camera that i want to use and i have never taken so many photos with any other camera (i have four cameras at present). However i very quickly started to produced images that are at least as good in terms of image quality as my nikon d80.

The size of the pen means it becomes easy for me to have a high quality camera with me wherever i go and that means that i am taking more images and hence becoming a better photographer. I think it was a german import as the camera arrived with a german manual and an adapter plug for the two pin lead on the battery charger. Look and feelto a more mature photographer the retro styling of this camera makes it a thing of beauty. The pen feels weighty and solid and the buttons and dials are all of good quality, however the pen is not shower proof, which is a shame for such a good camera. Knowing now how good the pen is i would have purchased the body and a separate higher quality lens.

Ergonomicsthe camera size and button placement is pretty good for shooting and the camera can be held in a similar fashion to a standard slr. For me, one of the advantage of the pen is that it can be held more comfortably and stably then a larger and heavier dslr and this can reflect in the sharpness of the images. There is no doubt that when hand holding a camera i can take sharper images with the pen than with my d80 and seemingly regardless of the quality of the lens on either camera. The screen is at least adequate to compose a shot and because of the lightness of the camera i find that i hold it quite close to my eye and in some ways it feels like an eyepiece. The only real limitation is in very bright conditions when the screen can become washed out, but i spent a few days with the pen in the south of france on bright, blue sky days and there were only a couple of times when i couldn't compose the shot due to a washed out screen.

I found that the displayed live view image was underexposed compared to the captured raw image (could this be because the live view is showing the jpeg image) as with the histogram. When you try to use the focus ring the screen magnifies the display to aid in focusing but the screen needs to be of higher resolution to get this right and so there is a limitation in manual focusing. Also because of a slow screen refresh it becomes difficult to track anything moving at greater than running pace and this is can be frustrating so it is not a camera for capturing fast action. Usually if i need flash then i am happy to use my compact camera for snaps or my dslr for 'proper photographs'. Functionalityin terms of functions, the pen has all the operations of a dslr either at the touch of a button or on the shooting menu and there are many other reviews that are far better at describing them than i could ever do.

Olympus have stated that this should improve auto focus and as far as i am concerned the focusing speed is similar to any other camera that i have. This means that i take better exposed shots with my pen than with my dslr, although i am starting to internalize the zone method through feedback from live view and this is paying dividends when using my dslr. White balancei have generally found that when processing a raw image from the pen i need to do less tweaking of the white balance than with raw images from the d80. Image qualityi virtually always shoot in raw and i am gob-smacked at the quality of the images straight out of the camera when compared to my d80. At the moment i use adobe camera raw for the d80 images and olympus master 2 for the pen images and this does make a difference to the default image settings but when i look at the untouched images the pen wins hands down.

I would have to say that after processing a few hundred pen raw files and a few thousand d80 raw files the pen is capable of at least matching the quality of images that can be generated from the d80 and in many cases exceeding it. Supporting softwarethe pen comes with olympus master 2 for which i have the following comments:- installs without a problem- will update the firmware of your camera, which is a nice touch. - has a very good organizer, one that i prefer to photoshop elements 5- the raw file processing is not very sophisticated and is limiting to post processing and the final quality of the image. To process raw files in photoshop you need camera raw version 5. Final wordsthe pen ep-1 is a great bargain at this price and a fantastic camera for the keen and technically minded amateur photographer.

For me it has brought back the fun of photography without compromising on image quality. Well its not a dslr, but i can live with the images it takes.

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