Olympus PEN E-PL1

Speed and Timing

Shutter speeds range from 1/2000 second to 60 seconds, plus bulb for extended exposures. The fastest shutter speed isn’t very fast when compared to most SLRs, which ordinarily offer 1/4000 or 1/8000 second speeds. It’s worth noting that the Olympus E-P1 tops out at 1/4000 second.

The Anti-shock mode lets you set a delay (anywhere from 1/8 second to 30 seconds) between the moment you press the shutter button and the moment the photo is taken. This is useful when shooting with a microscope or telescope.

The E-PL1 delivered what Olympus promises, burst rate shooting at about 3 frames per second, putting it on a par with the E-P1 in the just adequate department.

There is a single burst mode setting, which Olympus puts at ‘approximately 3 frames/sec. for as long as the shutter button is pressed.’ Whether we were shooting full-res super-fine JPEGs or RAW files (without attached JPEGs), we found that the buffer filled up after nine or ten shots, slowing progress to a crawl.

There are two self-timer settings but, oddly, no option to have the camera beep as the self-timer ticks down. Not that the sound serves much purpose, since there is a clearly visible lamp blinking at the subject on the front of the camera, but we’ve come to expect an audible cue too.

Focus Speed

The camera uses eleven autofocus areas, as shown in the diagram below. You can let the camera select one, in All Target mode, or choose one manually using the four-way controller. Since the leftmost button on the four-way is the shortcut for selecting an autofocus area, the process is fast and simple. You can also assign the Fn or movie button to automatically return the AF point to a predetermined target, but this doesn’t seem like a particularly compelling use of scarce button resources.

One of the major beefs with the Olympus E-P1 and E-P2 was autofocus speed. Actually ‘speed’ isn’t even the right word, since ‘crawl’ more accurately reflects the experience. In April, Olympus released a firmware update for the E-PL1 (and the other PEN cameras) that promises to improve autofocus speed by 15%. We updated our review cameras, took it for a test drive and (drum roll please)… found that the update lives up to its promise. Of course, the key question is whether faster is fast enough, and that really depends on what you’re shooting. When the lights are low, autofocus performance is still mighty pokey (and there’s no autofocus assist lamp to help out). In a normally lit room shooting candids, you’re probably going to be alright. Trying to follow the action at a school football game it’s hit and miss.Initial focus acquisition time is still going to make you miss out on some key plays. If you know who you’re shooting, though, lock on and use the continuous autofocus tracking option, you’ll succeed more often than not.

If you turn face detection on, the camera will find a face and focus on it when you’re using all target mode. If you’ve selecting an autofocus target manually, the camera can still use face detect for exposure control, but will focus on the target you’ve chosen.