Olympus PEN E-P1

Olympus has designed a camera that’s bigger than your typical point and shoot but significantly smaller than a digital SLR, thanks to the Micro Four Thirds format (which eliminates the SLR mirror box to shrink a camera’s depth) and some smart engineering. When Panasonic designed its first Micro Four Thirds cameras, it looked to traditional SLRS for inspiration. When Olympus tackled the task, they went back to the company’s 1959 PEN rangefinder film camera, which gives the E-P1 both a fun retro aesthetic and a very easy-to-handle, solid feel.

Beyond look and feel, the strong suits of the E-P1 are superior color accuracy and very good resolution results. High image noise (typical of a small-sensor format) and limited dynamic range are problems, but the results aren’t scandalous — you just don’t’ want to push your luck with high ISO shooting. As for the hardware, what’s missing that matters are a built-in flash and some kind of eye-level viewfinder. Considering these significant missing pieces of the puzzle, we don’t think the E-P1 is the ultimate camera in this admittedly inviting form factor. Still, the E-P1 came along on many occasions when an SLR (or even Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds G-series cameras) were too bulky to schlep, producing good-looking images easily, and that’s a satisfying combination.

Performance

In most of our lab tests the E-P1 did very well and, in the key color accuracy and resolution sections, it shined. We found image noise problematic, just as we have with the other Micro Four Thirds and Four Thirds format cameras that use the same relatively small sensor size. Olympus’ decision to offer an ISO 6400 setting on an already noisy camera must have made the marketing folks happy, but it won’t endear the camera to those who prefer images that don’t look like they were shot inside a snow globe. Autofocus speed is a problem area: don’t expect to shoot fast-moving action unless you have lots of light and a very small aperture to make up for the slow focus performance with deep depth of field. The other mediocre result came in continuous shooting speed, which we measured at a hair under 3 shots per second.

Video

The video features on the E-P1 are fun to play around with, but the camera doesn’t offer the performance or versatility that you get from many higher-end video DSLRs. The camera’s video looked good, but it was severely limited by the fact that it topped out at 1280 × 720 resolution. Still, the camera is very intriguing because of its compact size and the fact that it can work with a variety of lenses.

Hardware

The solidly constructed metal camera body is a pleasure to see and to handle. The 3-inch LCD offers an ordinary 230,000-dot resolution, but it holds up to bright sunlight well, particularly when you crank up the LCD brightness setting. Having two control dials is a definite plus, making settings adjustments speedy, especially in manual shooting mode. And we give kudos to the innovative 3x kit zoom lens design: when you’re not using it, you can collapse the lens down to about half the shooting depth, reinforcing a key benefit of the camera in an ingenious way.

Controls

The E-P1 combines an intelligent Auto mode that attempts to recognize the scene before you and match it up to a preset scene mode with the traditional program, aperture-priority, shutter-priority and manual shooting modes. Newbies will welcome the wide array of scene modes provided and, while they seemed irretrievably goofy when we first encountered them, the Art Filter effects have grown on us a bit.

Sample Photos

In the following sample images, clicking on the larger image will download the full resolution original. Each photo is accompanied by four actual-size crops.

Cityscape Sample
				Focal length: 25mm Aperture: f/13 Shutter: 1/80 ISO: 100 This shot of New York’s Times Square shows off the terrific color and resolution performance of the E-P1. It was shot in aperture-priority mode using evaluative metering. The line are razor-sharp, the colors pure and accurate.

Art Filters Samples
	Focal length: 21mm Aperture: f/5.6 Shutter: 1/125 ISO: 100 To experiment with the Art Filter effects we headed for Rockefeller Center and shot this colorful plaza. The shot at the top was taken in program mode, natural picture mode, the others with the Art Filter indicated. In this shot, the Pop Art filter might have been more useful if we could adjust the effect. The Pin Hole shot, though, does a great job reproducing the look of grandpa’s old vacation snapshots.
	Pop Art
	Soft focus
	Pale & Light Color
	Light Tone
	Grainy Film
	Pin Hole

Wildlife Sample
				Focal length: 32mm Aperture: f/6.3 Shutter: 1/200 ISO: 200 These local geese were shot in program mode shifted to increase the aperture, with evaluative metering. We went with vivid picture mode to pump up the plumage colors a bit. It’s generally a good exposure, though contrast is a bit low. There are a variety of textures here, all captured well.

Monumental Sample
				Focal length: 24mm Aperture: f/4.5 Shutter: 1/80 ISO: 200 This disrespected statue in Columbus Circle was shot in program mode, with automatic white balance and natural picture mode. The subtle gradations in the stonework are preserved well, and the engravings have nice sharp edges.

Noise Reduction Detail Sample
	Focal length: 38mm Aperture: f/5.4 Shutter: 1/25 second ISO: 3200 To demonstrate the effect the noise reduction setting has on the fine detail, we shot these engravings with the camera on a tripod, with dim daylight filtered through window shades, at a consistent ISO 3200. The image at left was shot with noise reduction off, and can be clicked to load a full-sized version. As shown in the close-ups below, raising the noise reduction setting does smooth out the background speckling, but details suffers badly.
	Noise reduction off
	Noise reduction low
	Noise reduction standard
	Noise reduction high

Panorama Samples
	Focal length: 25mm Aperture: f/10 Shutter: 1/320 ISO: 200 We tried the panorama mode in both horizontal and vertical directions, stitching the images together using the supplied Olympus Master 2 software. The horizontal pan came together nicely, but the difficulties of maintaining straight lines in the vertical pan proved too much for the program to handle, and since the exposure is locked in with the first shot, things get rather murky by the time we got down to street level. Clicking on these images will download full-size versions, which are quite large.
	Focal length: 42mm Aperture: f/7.1 Shutter: 1/160 ISO: 200

Olympus PEN E-P1 Specs
Type	Compact SLR / System
Focal Length Minimum	14.0 mm
Focal Length Maximum	42.0 mm
35mm Focal Length Minimum	0.0 mm
35mm Focal Length Maximum	0.0 mm
Still Pixel Count (gross)	13.1 megapixels
Still Pixel Count (effective)	12.3 megapixels
Sensor Size	Micro Four Thirds
Sensor Type - New	CMOS
Aspect Ratios	4:3
Frame Rate(s)	30p
Original Price	499.99 $
Height	69.85 mm
Width	120.396 mm
Depth	34.798 mm
Weight	334.53 g
Model Colors	black, blue, champagne
Display Type	LCD
Display Size	3.0 in.
Display Resolution	230000 pixels
Viewfinder Type	none
Media New	SD/SDHC
Connectivity Options	USB, A/V, miniHDMI, hot accessory shoe, accessory port
Battery Type	removable lithium-ion
Battery Model Number	BLS-1
Mirror Technology (Interchangeable Lens)	Mirrorless
Waterproof	No
Manual Controls	aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, full manual exposure, custom white balance, ISO control
ISO Options	100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
Minimum ISO	100
Maximum ISO	3200