I suspect the basic kit for the Olympus E-P1 Pen will include the body, which comes in black (shown here) and silver and the 14-42mm lens.
As a camera owner and a dad, I find myself connected to my camera like few other gadgets. I suppose if I had to choose, I'd rather take my Rebel Xti on a trip rather than a laptop, or even my BlackBerry.
My attachment, of course, coincides with the arrival of the kids. Oh, I've had a camera most of my life, but when a gadget can do something like capture and preserve the greatest things in your life, hey, its value becomes all the more important. On a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's a few weeks ago, I left it behind and felt like I'd forgotten my left hand. Over the past few years, I've taken more than 14,000 pictures.
So I'm a great believer in the merits of investing in a good device, especially given today's sharing via social media, creating your own artsy content and backing up on cheap storage or in the cloud. You can not only go click-crazy, but also be creative in what you produce.
An excellent camera not only has the ability to take good pictures, obviously, but it's got to be as versatile as you are, so you can grow with it. If eventually you want to buy an additional lens, maybe a zoom or a macro, you need a camera that can do that. If you're into creating content such as videos or images that take advantage of special effects, you'll need a camera that can do that, too.
And it's a plus if the gadget doesn't look half-bad.
I've spent two weeks playing with the yet-to-be-released Olympus Pen E-P1, one of two cameras in a new category of devices called the Micro Four-Thirds, and while the new Pen doesn't particularly suit my lifestyle and needs, it's going to appeal to a wide range of consumers. Not only is it a fabulous-looking device, but the Globe and Mail team found the Pen's beauty much more than skin deep.
Olympus released the original Pen 50 years ago, and this new model has long been promoted as sort of the digital commemorative edition. The idea is to draw on people's nostalgia and appreciation of the Pen line and produce a camera that looks like it's right out of a newsreel. The Pen has an excellent reputation among camera experts (of which I am not one), and as one digital photography blog put it, is the "perfect marriage of simplicity, style and performance."
The similarities between the old and new are obvious. They're both about the same size, and with the optional 17 milimetre lens attached, the brushed metal and leather grip on the E-P1 really brings out its old-time look and feel.
But while the outside looks 50s, the inside is totally 2009.
The E-P1 has a 12.3 megapixel high-speed image sensor, shoots at up to ISO 6400 and has three modes of in-body image stabilization - pretty much what you'd expect from a good consumer DSLR. It also shoots HD video and can record in 4:3 (640x480 at 30 frames per second) and 16:9 (1280x720 at 30 fps). But the Pen body is much smaller than your average Canon or Nikon, hence the "micro" in Micro Four-Thirds. In fact, the camera looks more like a late 90s 3-megapixel point-and-shoot than a DSLR. But that's the point.
Most DSLRs have a reflex mirror built into the body of the camera that reflects the image you're looking at through the lens (via the viewfinder). That contributes to a standard DSLR's size (and to its name, actually).
Olympus has removed the mirror and reduced the lens mount by about 6 mm. So, while the Pen uses a standard-sized image processor, the lack of a mirror and smaller lens mount results in a much smaller body that does not compromise picture quality. The E-P1 is one of two cameras in this new, and likely growing segment. The other is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1.
But don't let the "micro" fool you. While the Pen comes with two lenses that can fit right onto the body, anyone with Olympus lenses at home or with a plan to expand his collection can use two available adapter mounts that accommodate the company's line of digital and standard SLR lenses.
Olympus has packed some pretty good creative features into the camera, as well, by far the best of which are the new art features. The Pen has six dedicated art filters that include pop art (saturated colours), soft focus (softens edges), pale lighting (brightens flat light), light tone (brightens entire image), grainy film (very cool old-style black and whites) and pin hole (darkens the edges of the image). All six work with still images or video and produce some nice results.
But while the camera knocks it out of the park for look and feel and the type of content you can produce, actually handling the camera can be confusing and frustrating. In a blog post two weeks ago I mentioned picking it up for the fist time and thinking it was a little like borrowing a friend's car and needing a few minutes to figure out where the wipers, lights and radio dials are. I take that back now. After spending more time with the Pen, figuring out which dials and buttons do what is more like figuring out an airplane cockpit console.
I found the function dial on the top of the camera that lets you flip between video, auto, the art filters and such to be pretty standard, but the main function wheel and especially the misplaced and odd scroll wheel at the top right of the camera is not intuitive. Sometimes a zoom function, sometimes a menu flip function, I ended up ignoring it almost entirely.
And while there is a way to switch between art filters via the on-screen menu, the fastest and most efficient way I found to switch between grainy film and soft focus was to flip the main function dial from the art filter setting to auto, and then back again.
One of the things I like best about my Canon is the ability to adjust all of the manual controls with one thumb and forefinger while maintaining a grip on the lens. The Pen, though it shoots images like a DSLR, handles much more like a point-and-shoot. You need two hands and two thumbs to fiddle and set up your new shot.
But don't take my word for it. For part of this review I teamed up with Tory Zimmerman, one of the Globe's two full-time videographers. I gave Tory the camera for two days to shoot some stills and record a video. In producing the accompanying video and photo gallery for this piece, Tory also said she found the camera's menus and dials not to be very intuitive.
"You think one dial is going to do something, but it doesn't," she explained. "Anyone with half a knowledge of playing with a DSLR will figure it out, but things like shifting your point of focus is hard to do."
However, when it came to judging the quality of the images and video, Tory said she was surprised at how good pictures turned out, and was especially positive about the video.
"Video quality is bright, responds quickly, handles motion well and doesn't blow out the highlights. And you can shoot at high ISO and low ISO with very little noise," she said.
Given its small size, retro-chic appearance and pretty cool art features, Olympus is banking on the Pen appealing to the hipster prosumer crowd, which not only want to be seen with a unique device in their hands, but will use it to create, rather than shoot, and then share their work with the world.
And while I'm the furthest thing from a hipster prosumer and will stick with my non-video-shooting Xti, I can definitely see the appeal of the E-P1 and suspect this one is the first of a new line of digital Pens that will be around for a long time.
The Olympus Pen E-P1 hits stores in July. You'll find it at places like Henry's, Lens and Shutter or McBain's. The body, on its own, will sell for about $850. With the 14-42 mm lens plus body, you'll be looking at about $900. The 17 mm lens and viewfinder kit will sell for about $1,000.