Olympus PEN E-P1 Camera Review – Digital SLR Quality Micro Camera

October 29, 2009

Olympus PEN E-P1 is the first Micro Four Thirds camera by Olympus complementing the past reputation of the manufacturer with its style and innovation. Fondly titled as the ‘Digital Pen’ in some of the countries, Olympus PEN E-P1 is small and compact like its ancestor Pen models; E-450 and E-620. With its bold features and ultra cool design, E-P1 is creating havoc in the DSLR market.

Design and Built

The PEN E-P1’s most commendable feature is its frame work and design. Supporting a stainless steel body, the camera may be weighty but this gives it a strong and sturdy feel. And at 335g, it is still lighter than its peers. Measuring 120.5×70.0×35.0mm in dimensions, E-P1 is easy to carry and hold.

The classy exterior matches the excellent positioning of the controls and buttons. A few buttons on the back panel, the four- way directional pad with a surrounding rotating scroll wheel (which gets annoying to scroll some times), barrel shaped control on the upper right hand side of the back panel for digital zoom and image cropping and a tightly gripped mode dial are some of the features providing ease of use. Towards the right hand side on the camera front is the faux-Bakelite grip which not only gives the camera a stylish look but also provides a nice resting place to the user while shooting.

Micro Four Thirds System

Making life easier for point and shoot camera users, Olympus announced its Micro Four Thirds last year. This system consists of the same 18x 13.5mm Sensor as conventional SLRs, however does not rely on the mirror and prism system so as to direct an image towards the camera’s optical view finder. This results in an internally less complicated and lighter device and also offers an over all reduced size. The camera is so small that it can easily fit into your pocket or bag. Despite its small size, the Olympus PEN E-P1 produces high quality pictures.

Micro Four Third cameras have an added advantage that they utilize the space taken up by the mirror-prism set, for the Live View LCDs or electronic viewfinder. This not only makes camera petite and portable but also provides support for interchangeable lenses and large image sensors.

Lens Kit

The camera comes with Olympus’s two new Micro Four Third lenses; M. Zuiko 14-42mm (f/3.5-5.6) and 17mm (f/2.8 Pancake Prime). Both the MFT lenses are well designed with the clever kit zoom that can be easily folded and thus is ideal for traveling. The only down side is that neither of the lenses are plastic- cased that definitely effects the robustness and durability of the optics.

The E-P1 has a remarkably efficient lens mount that offers the user a number of options to select from and a satisfactory telephoto coverage. The minute image circle and short flange back distance, Olympus PEN E-P1 provides adaptors that support full-size Four Thirds (most supporting AF) and classic OM mount lenses as well as Leica M glass can be adapted to mount on the camera.

Sensor and Processor

E-P1 may resemble the E-30 from the outside but the insides are much better in performance. The 12.3 MP Live MOS sensor ensures superb image resolution and clarity. There are Art Filters incorporated to boost the image quality which is a light low pass filter aided by the powerful and sturdy processor TruePic V. all of this helps in a better ISO performance and recording of High Definition video clips that was missing in the previous models.

The Display

The 3 inch HyperCrystal II LCD screen in E-P1 gives beautiful and bright images with a resolution of 230,000 dots. As with other Olympus models, some colour disturbances are noticed, nevertheless, the scenes captured are crisp and clear. Still images look a little cooler on the screen but appear to be satisfactory when viewed after shooting. Do not try to set the image as it might give you artificially warm shots.

Coming to the view finder there’s none! One of the differential features in Olympus’s debut digital ‘Pen’ camera is that it does not have any optical view finder leaving you the LCD screen for image composition. Although there is a hot shoe provided in which an external view finder can be fixed, then you would have to do without an external flash.

Movie Recording

Olympus PEN E-P1 records High Definition movies at an excellent resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at the rate of 30fps thus competing with the present day HD point-and-shoot cameras and the Nikon D90 SLR camera.

The E-P1’s video mode shoots videos with stereo audio recording in the AVI format, but does not support the fancy AVCHD codec. This result in larger movie files, however there is the advantage of feasibility to view and edit theses clips with the modern softwares available nowadays. Thanks to the 8GB SDHC card, now you can record around 30min of720p HD videos that is though, half the time as recorded by Panasonic Z- series. Nevertheless, the image quality is admirable with visual aspects of image recording all fully catered.

Art Filters

One unique option in E-P1 is that of the ‘Art’ mode which allows access to six distinct art filters for image capturing; ‘Pop Art’ enhancing colours, ‘Grainy Film’ giving an artistic touch to the screen, ‘Soft Focus’ for a warmer and dramatic effect, ‘Pinhole’ gives an antique look, ‘Light Tone’ as the name suggests tones down the overall picture colours, ‘Pale and Light’ produces images with a faded look. All these modes may not be of any help to serious photographers but they add a little fun to your pictures and make them more interesting. In addition to the stills, these filters can be applied to video clips; doubling the fun!

Image Noise

E-P1 provides a wide range of ISO sensitivity; 100- 6400. Up to ISO 1600, the image integrity remains more or less intact but as the number increases, the camera looses control over the ISO setting and the picture colours and details start getting disturbed such that from being noticeable at 3200, at 6400, it becomes obvious.

Conclusion

The Olympus PEN E-P1 is a refreshing change in the conventional digital photography. It’s innovative in functions and stylish in design. With its high quality picture and video performance, Olympus PEN E-P1 can compete with any top class digital camera.

Olympus PEN E-P1 Camera Specifications

Size: 120.5×70.0×35.0mm
Weight: 335g (body only excl. battery and card)
Display: 3.0″ HyperCrystal II LCD, 230,000dots (73,000px)
Viewfinder: Optional accessory
Live view: Yes, Contrast detection system, 100% field of view
Processor: TruePic V image processor
Resolution: 12Mp
Sensor size: 17.3×13.0mm
Sensor type: Hi-Speed LiveMOS Four Thirds
Image size: 4032×3024
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Focus system: Contrast detection AF system
Focus points: 11
Crop factor: 2x
Lens mount: Micro Four Thirds, Two new kit lenses (M. Zuiko 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 and 17mm F2.8 Pancake)
File type: 12bit RAW, JPEG
Sensitivity: ISO100-6400
Storage: SD, SDHC
Focus types: Area, single, face detection
Metering system: TTL open aperture
Metering types: Digital ESP, centre-weighted, spot
Exposure compensation: +/- 3EV in 1, ½, 1/3 step increments
Shutter speed: 60sec-1/4000sec
Frames per second: Approx. 3fps
Flash: External only
Flash sync speed: 1/30sec-1/180sec
Image stabilization: Sensor shift type, one or two dimensional movement to 4EV steps
HD movies: (720p) with stereo sound, Linear PCM sound recording. 3.0 fps sequential shooting
Integrated cleaning: SSWF
Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI
Power: Li-Ion battery
Other features:
Automatic recognition of common scenes possible with i-Auto, Dual control dials
Face Detection & Shadow Adjustment
Art Filters, multi-aspect ratios, multi exposure
In-camera raw conversion (including application of Art Filters)