The E-P1 is freaking awesome. But. Like everyone already said the casual user will have a hard time ‘trading up’ to a camera without a viewfinder or a flash. High-end photographers will sniff at the cheapo-cam focus speed, the weird failure to support external flash features like focus-assist and wireless TTL, and they’ll probably miss a viewfinder more than beginners will.
So who is this camera for? Well, if you’re used to manual focus then slow by modern standards still feels pretty darn good. Let’s say that you sorely miss taking great-looking photos with Velvia or T-Max 100 film in a relatively inexpensive and portable body. In that case the compromises you make with an E-P1 are pretty close to compromises that you already made with your old camera. To be happy with an E-P1 you need to care quite a lot more about portability and image quality than you do about ease of use and a full feature set.
The portability is great, although I wouldn’t go overboard about it. On the one hand the camera fits into bags that a DSLR won’t (e.g., most purses). I could fit the camera with kit zoom into the lower pocket on some cargo shorts, even if it made walking around rather awkward and it looked like I stole something. The images, however, seem easily as good as I’d heard.
Who did Olympus mean to use the E-P1? Pros who want something to complement their full-featured DSLR, plus wealthy early adopters, already bought out practically every vendor other than Amazon. I guess that’s great. On the other hand, the number who will prefer the E-P1 as their only camera seems like it should be pretty small. Fortunately that includes me.
***Update***
A closer look at the fly. Scale is 1:1 for pixel peeping.
Mr Furious
Congrats on taking the plunge. I hope you enjoy it.
Mr Furious
Nice snap of the fly. Is that the full frame or a crop?
Tim F.
Thanks, MF. It is a crop of roughly 50% area and 85% reduced res to fit on the blog.
Thomas Levenson
Jealous.
That is all.
Thomas Levenson
Jealous.
That is all.
General Winfield Stuck
Wow, that is amazing detail for such an unassuming little camera.
Wile E. Quixote
@Tim F.
It’s not a purse, it’s called a satchel. Indiana Jones wears one.
fouroboros
That cropped C/U is too good. And the fly has to be fake. Where’s the birth certificate?
John B.
I got one for my wife, and she loves it. She’s a perfect demographic for the EP-1: she was dissatisfied with the images from her P&S, not afraid, in fact, to learn more about the technical side of things, but not willing to get an SLR because of the size and inconvenience.
She had planned on keeping her P&S, which she generally liked, and using it as her main carry-around. But since she got the Olympus, she literally has not taken a single picture with her old camera.
hidflect
Looks good enough to eat… as the saying goes.
Norm
The E-P1 is essentially an Olympus E-620 crammed into a mirrorless, prismless body. I just got an E-620 and the amazing 12-60mm lens that dpreview and others have raved about. I LOVE it, and I can see why people are so digging their E-P1’s.
Lesley
Wow. I’m considering a new camera and want the best of both worlds: vivid clear captures and a small camera that isn’t a pain in the ass to lug around. Looks like this can deliver.
cliff
Nice.
looks like it is lovely on still shots, how does it do on action?
(I’ve taken some great shots with tremendously slow cams over the years.. just gotta get the pan perfect on the rally cars.)
cliff
oh, and you wouldn’t believe how bad I felt at throwing out(!!) 30+ rolls of velvia!! I know, I know .. but they were free and expired and I couldn’t afford to dev them if I took pics .. I’m still sad ’bout it though as I havn’t used my slr since =(
stacie
Is that fly on a basil leaf?
2th&nayle
@stacie: Basil was the first thing I thought too. Well… that was the second thing I thought. I’m fairly sure that the fly is a ‘greenbottle’ or, if you will, a ‘blowfly’. Their usually attracted to decaying carrion or dung in one form or other. If in fact, this pic was taken in a herb garden, it would serve as another very good reason to be sure and thoroughly wash everything you harvest.
The Raven
“So who is this camera for?”
Pros who are still waiting for the “decisive moment” digital camera. This ain’t it, but it’s getting closer. (For the full “not quite there, but close” effect, the 17mm lens and viewfinder attachment are recommended. Set it to manual focus at about 8′, stop down to perhaps f/5.6 or f/8, & shoot away.)
R-Jud
Well, that’s the Mr.’s Christmas present sorted.
Michael D.
Good God Damn !!
If that fly is 1:1 scale, then why don’t you move the fuck away from that nightmarish shit fly kingdom?
Cat Lady
Hairy little bugger, innit?
Tim F.
@stacie: Yep, it’s a basil leaf. We wash our stuff.
@Michael D.: In this case 1:1 means that I presented the original pixels in the camera’s RAW output without resizing the image. The macro factor on the E-P1’s kit zoom is pretty nice.
2th&nayle
@Michael D.: hahahahaha!
asiangrrlMN
Wow. Nice-looking fly!
Oh, can we haz new thread pleez? I have three more hours a day to fill now (since I apparently can’t sleep more than five hours a night).
cleek
mighty impressive.
was that hand-held ?
Lee
I did not read the review.
Does Olympus still use their own memory card?
As long as they do I will never buy another Olympus camera.
Tim F.
@cleek: Yep.
cec
You just had to post that. The picture quality is amazing. And me, with all my old Olympus manual SLR lenses just sitting around, needing a good digital camera body to call home. You are a bad, bad man.
Mike Mundy
In the world of digital photography it never hurts to procrastinate.
Panasonic is now apparently coming out with its compact m43 camera . . . the GF1. (With a possible Leica version.)
Something Fabulous
Wow, the pet pix around here are getting really over-the-top…
Trollhattan
@Lee #25,
Nope, Oly (finally) did the right thing and ditched xD for SDHC for the E-P1. It remains to be seen whether they are similarly inspired to junk xD in their compacts and superzooms, and in the second slot on their dslrs.
Tim, I’m very glad you took the jump and are smitten by your new camera. The images I’ve seen from firmware 1.0 cameras are so clean–the least high-ISO noise I’ve seen in a 4/3 camera. That little zoom is an amazing piece of packaging.
Now from the other corner, leaked photos of the next Panny µ4/3 offering–the GF1–show they finally “get it” in terms of the form factor with a rangefinder lookalike body very similar to the E-P1, only with the addition of a (non-documented) plug-in EVF. This would be a complete win, were it not for Panny’s not offering in-body IS. It’s that last factor that will keep me on the µ4/3 sidelines until at least spring, when Oly’s semi-pro body (avec viewfinder) is due.
http://www.1001noisycameras.com/2009/08/panasonic-gf1-.html
Captain Goto
Pretty awesome.
Regardless, I don’t think my fiancee is going to let me throw away the Canon EOS Rebel that she bought me last Christmas…
terry chay
@cliff: It does action just fine (that’s a broken E-P1.
Oh you mean how fast is the AF? In C mode it’s okay, but between shots, it will hunt. Really annoying if you want to do sport photography and just in general.
You gotta give somewhere. :-)
terry chay
@Trollhattan: The leaked photo also showed a popup flash that looks a lot like the one on the LX3. I’m happy with my E-P1, I’ll take in-camera stabilization over a built-in flash any day.
Robert Sneddon
A friend lost the saving throw for Shiny! and bought an EP-1 soon after its release into the wild. He’s an experimenter and he’s playing around with adaptors and his 1950s Voigtlander rangefinder lenses coupled to the super-up-to-date Olympus digital body and having a lot of fun. He likes to shoot scenery and older stuff like steam trains and make it look “dated” (mostly using ‘Shop). The EP-1 seems to be flavour of the month as far as he’s concerned.