Olympus PEN E-PL1

Handling (8.00)

The E-PL1 doesn’t have the classic retro look or metal body of its PEN predecessors, but it offers a similar comfort level. The camera is light and maneuverable without feeling insubstantial. The right hand grip on the front is a bit shallow for our taste, but curling your middle and ring fingers around it provides a firm handhold, with your index finger positioned appropriately over the shutter. Your thumb rests on a flat space just to the left of the movie record button (right over the speaker, in fact). This looks a bit perilous in the photo, but that record button is actually raised up on a kind of pedestal, making it very unlikely your thumb will drift over and accidentally start shooting.

Buttons & Dials (8.25)

There are significant changes here compared to the E-P1 and E-P2. The vertically mounted control wheel is gone, along with the left hand control dial, with their functions taken over by the four-way controller. It’s not a disaster, but it’s a notable downgrade, making adjustments slower and less convenient. For manually adjusting shutter speed and aperture priority, the new system is a clumsy kludge, as outlined here. For most operations, though, the trade-offs are acceptable. And we are happy to see the dedicated movie button, especially since it can be programmed to take over some of the functions previously only assignable to the overworked Fn button.

Display(s) (4.65)

The LCD is a bit small, at 2.7 inches, with an ordinary 230,000-dot resolution. The image gets a little grainy and flickers a bit in low light, but updates smoothly under any lighting conditions, stands up to bright sunlight well. Overall, a perfectly adequate display, but lacking the visual snap of the OLED screen on Samsung’s NX10, or the higher-res 3-inch LCD on the Panasonic GF1.

LCD brightness and color temperature can both be adjusted manually, with 15 available settings for each. There is also an optional Live View Boost feature to adjust brightness automatically.

Secondary Display

The monochrome information display panel found on higher-end SLRs is understandably lacking here.

Viewfinder (0.00)

The E-PL1 doesn’t come with an electronic viewfinder, but it does have an accessory slot for mounting the optional VF-2 EVF (a pricey $280 accessory). The good news here is that the EVF display is bright and clear, even in low light, and keeps up well as you move the camera, without the smearing and stuttering we sometimes see. The eyepiece can be angled freely up to 90 degrees, which is fortunate — when left flat, it’s very difficult to hold comfortably without the camera mashing into your nose. Of course, your nasal protuberance may be more forgiving, but we found a 45 degree angle was the best bet. If needed, you can make a a diopter adjustment by turning a ring around the eyecup.

The EVF shows the same information as the LCD and, also like the LCD, can be adjusted for brightness and color temperature.There’s no sensor to automatically switch between the two displays when you hold the camera to your eye. Instead, you press a button positioned under the eyecup.

Image Stabilization (6.30)

We test the effectiveness of image stabilization systems by mounting the camera in a computer-controlled rig that produces repeatedable movement patterns and shooting a test chart at a range of shutter speeds, first with a low level of shake, then with a high level. In the case of the E-PL1, the in-camera stabilzation didn’t have much effect when the camera wasn’t moving much, but produced substantially sharper images at all tested shutter speeds when the camera was shaken more aggressively. More on how we test image stabilization.

In addition to simply turning image stabilization on and off, you can select I.S. 2 mode, which only compensates for vertical shake to ensure smooth horizontal panning, or I.S. 3, which dampens horizontal shake when panning vertically. If you’re not shooting with a Micro Four Thirds lens, you can manually enter focal length information to tune image stabilization performance.

Image Stabilization Comparison Table			Expand
	Low Shake IS Off	Low Shake IS On	High Shake IS Off	High Shake IS On
1/500
1/250
1/125
1/60
1/30
1/15
1/8

As seen in the chart below, the E-PL1 image stabilization system stacks up well against the other cameras in our comparison group, with only its brand mate E-P1 posting superior results.