I bought this a few weeks ago. I wanted a light weight camera that could take a half decent image. Sometimes carrying the backpack with SLR & lenses is just not possible.

I'd owned a few point and shoots but after using a SLR I was finding the image quality a little lacking. It's been a mission to find something that doesn't really exist, something pocket sized that can churn out images with near SLR quality and speed. This Olympus has it's limitations, it's slow, nearly as slow as a point and shoot. Auto focus in low light is really quite poor. It has no view finder, well, it has the one you can plonk on the hot shoe but this only works with the Zuiko 17mm lens and it really is next to useless. Shooting subjects that are moving is nearly impossible too because there is no focus tracking.

Now all of the above sounds quite depressing but there is some good news. All of the controls you would find on a SLR are here on the E-P1 and once you master the menus/buttons all are easily accessible. Most importantly the image quality isn't to bad and that's what counts at the end of the day. I've seen some really great images taken with this camera. I haven't managed "great" because another limitation here is the guy behind the camera, me Still, i've had a few i'm pleased with and I think I will hang on to this for a while and see how I get on with it.

It came with the Zuiko 14-42mm kit lens. I've since bought the Zuiko 17mm f2.8 which I used to shoot all of the images below.

See what you think.

The Camera.

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3. ISO 1600

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Edited 12 September, 201015 yr by Chris197

Very nice Chris - now how about a CPL for the last one?

Nice apart from the known limitations that you have mentioned the E-P1 seems to produce great images.

The whole EViL camera area seems to be where manufacturers are putting a lot of effort lately and each newly released model is showing improvement on the last/ Sony are certainly pushing their NEX 3 and 5 heavily and Nikon can't be far away from releasing their version judging by the number of patents they have been applying for recently.

Very nice Chris - now how about a CPL for the last one?

Ta.

Some nasty reflections on that Fez for sure.

Nice apart from the known limitations that you have mentioned the E-P1 seems to produce great images.

The whole EViL camera area seems to be where manufacturers are putting a lot of effort lately and each newly released model is showing improvement on the last/ Sony are certainly pushing their NEX 3 and 5 heavily and Nikon can't be far away from releasing their version judging by the number of patents they have been applying for recently.

I'm pleased with the images but I'm tempted to upgrade already. I'm looking at the E-P2 for the electronic view finder.

That Sony does look very good. I've seen a fair few images from the Nex 5 and they look really good. I'm sure nikon will have something out soon, as you say there have been a couple of patents passed already and the drawings that went with them look very promising. There is a market here, hopefully more of the big guns will go down the micro path. The Samsung NX100 is another interesting option not to mention Sony's A55.

I'd highly recommend the Panasonic 20mm F1.7 lens as it's wider aperture makes for reasonable low light performance and shallower depth of field plus its small size and weight is well suited to the Pen. The problem with the Sony A55 compared to the mirrorless cameras is that while the body is smaller the lenses aren't and I find with the mirrorless cameras it's the overall package which makes them smaller, not just the body. That's not to take anything away from Sony though as i think it's great to see someone trying something a bit different, there were rumours Olympus were meant to be working on something similar a while back which would have made sense but I was disappointed (as an E-3 owner and heavily invested in 4/3 glass) all they released was a slightly warmed over E-3.

I started with a mirrorless setup last year, initially alongside an Olympus 4/3 setup and later on a D700 setup, I currently have the GH1, GF1, 20mm, 14-140mm and 7-14mm. I've been extremely pleased with it all simply because I can pack all that into a small shoulder bag. I'm a big fan of ultrawide lenses and used the Olympus 7-14mm extensively however it was a bulky lens and needed the bigger E-3 to balance properly, this wasn't a comfortable set up to carry in hand when walking. The GH1 and 7-14mm is almost comically small by comparison but offers the same performance with added advantage that the GH1 can shoot native. I'm looking forward to the new 24mm F2.5 lens as that will be great for the GF1 which I only ever use with the 20mm and the 100-300mm looks promising as well as at times I'm finding I don't really shoot much between 14mm and 140mm which would make the 100-300mm handy for some reach while leaving the 7-14mm for wide angle.

I think the NEX cameras technologically are incredible and the prices are surprisingly low, I'm really not keen on the controls though and I find the handling awful - the 18-55mm feels unbalanced, I'm surprised they're bringing out a monster 18-200mm rather than bringing out more small primes which go perfectly with the camera body. I find the same with the GF1, I never use the 7-14mm or 14-140mm as the handling is just awful - these lenses are far better on the slightly bigger GH1. I'm surprised Olympus have announced two telephoto lenses (40-150mm and 75-300mm) as those just seem a really poor choice for the small Pen cameras plus the zooms are of limited use to Panasonic owners as they lack the IS. I might have been tempted by the 75-300mm if it was a lot cheaper and Panasonic weren't releasing their own version but neither of those are true. If Olympus had announced a couple of decent compact primes then I'd definitely be interested.

John