Olympus E-PL1

I have used this camera for a couple of weeks now, with the newer version of the M.Zuiko14-42mm II R lens and some Nikon manual focus lenses. The camera is capable of producing very sharp pictures, especially at the low ISO (e.g., 200). The JPEG engine is very good. The default white balance setting gives very warm colors, pleasing to the eye (but may not be faithful to reality).

But there are a few things that make this camera really difficult to use:

1. The camera has terrible shutter lag. This makes it extremely difficult to capture moving target (such as a baby). It is hopeless to focus on a child on a swing.

2. Focus is hard. It takes many presses of the buttons to choose the correct focus point. If I let camera chooses the focus point, often it will choose the wrong subject. I am still learning. It has face-detection, but that is very confusing. Sometimes, the camera detects a face, but when I press the shutter release button, the camera will focus on something else.

3. LCD is almost not usable under sun light. I bought a VF-2 electronic viewfinder (price new is $225?! I bought it used). I bought the camera relatively cheap ($150), but with the lens and VF-2, the entire package is close to $500. That is no longer cheap. VF-2 works, but in general, electronic viewfinder does not look as good as the viewfinder on a DSLR.

4. Flare under strong sun light (could be due to the lens, the camera, or both). I bought a lens hood. Which is optional and sells for $25 separately?! I bought a third-party one from eBay. What Olympus is thinking? Anyway, the lens hood cannot eliminate the flare, it could also be focus issue. Hard to pinpoint the cause of this.

5. Not good for indoor when the light is not good (high iso performance is OK, but not as good as DSLRs).

So basically, if everything is right (the weather is greater, sunny, but not too sunny; the subject is not moving; etc.), the camera can produce very sharp and warm colored pictures. But it is very challenging. It might be good for scenic.

Olympus E-PL1 + Nikon 70-300mm VR @ 300mm

Olympus E-PL1 + Nikon 70-300mm @ 300mm, a photo by ggyy@mitbbs on Flickr.

One reason I bought the Olympus E-PL1 is that it has shake reduction. To see how effective the shake reduction is, I mounted an Nikon 70-300mm VR lens on it and shoot at 300mm (that is the only 300mm I have)--handheld. I guess the shake reduction is working, otherwise the result would have been more blurred.

BUT it is extremely difficult to focus, since unlike Nikon's lens VR, the body shake reduction does not seem tostablize the image when focusing.