Olympus E-P1 compact digital camera review

Posted by Marc Chacksfield on Mon 6 Jul 2009

Daddy cool...

With the current economic climate the way it is, sometimes you just want a gadget that transports you to a better time, when free love reigned supreme and the only stress you had was in choosing what paisley shirt to wear.

The Olympus E-P1 is that gadget. Modelled around Olympus’ ultra-cool Pen series of cameras that were introduced at the beginning of the ’60s, this modern-day update manages to be the King of retro-cool while also packing enough cutting-edge tech to compete with the DSLRs of the world.

Although the E-P1 has an interchangeable lens system, the camera can’t quite call itself a DSLR. This is because it makes use of the innovative Micro Four Thirds system – a crafty bit of tech that allows smaller cameras to adopt different lenses.
Not that you will care what the stuffy purists call the camera as it’s one of the most innovative gadgets on the market at the moment.

Retro cool

Straight from the off, you can see that E-P1 is a contender for the ‘coolest camera of the year’ award. Complete with a leather-style strap, holder and a pancake lens, the E-P1 looks like a Rangefinder that David Bailey would have used in the Sixties to capture any one of his famous celebrity portraits.

Sporting a large 12.3-megapixel sensor, the E-P1 works well in low-light conditions, squeezing more light out of a scene than pretty much every compact on the market. Although it falls short against, say, a Canon 500D it does fantastically well in pretty much any shooting situation. The picture is also perked up by the cam’s use of TruePic V image processing.

Situated on top of the camera’s chassis is a sunken Mode dial, which you control with a flick dial on the back. Here you can choose a number of options, including Auto, Programme Auto and Manual shooting.

Also on the back is a three-inch LCD screen. This is where you both view (using LiveView) and compose your shots. There is an external optical viewfinder available, which clicks straight to the hotshoe, but we didn’t have a problem lining up shots like you would any compact cam on the market.

Art attack

For those who want to get creative with their shots, there are a number of options available in the camera’s menu. Not only is there 19 'scenes' available – including Night+Portrait, Children and Macro – you can also select an art filter to make your photos look like a bit more, er, arty.

As for things like focussing, The E-P1 makes use of 11-point focus system which worked well under our tests, albeit a tad sluggish. To be fair, though, with the myriad manual options available you should be focussing on your own in no time.

Taking photos with the E-P1 was a breeze. Although there’s not much in the way of innovation – Burst mode is a mere 3fps – because of the diminutive size of the camera, you forget just how much power is under the hood. Then you see the vibrant images the E-P1 consistently takes and it all make sense.

While we only made use of the camera’s pancake lens, there is also a 14-42mm zoom one available for the camera. And with the E-P1 being Micro Four Thirds you can pretty much attach any lens to the camera via a separately sold adaptor. However, we’re not sure how good a shiny new lens would look with the camera’s deliberately retro look.

Movie mode

Just to re-emphasise that the E-P1 is tech savvy Olympus has added 720p video capabilities to the shooter. This means you can record HD footage in seven-minute bursts or double it in standard-def mode. What’s even better is that the Movie mode also supports the art filter option. This did take a while to render, however, on playback. In short, the Olympus E-P1 is a brilliant-looking camera, and possibly the best example so far of what the Micro Four Thirds technology is capable of.

While many will baulk at the price of the thing (£699 with pancake lens), the camera has the right amount of technology to back up its worth and will no doubt tempt new users to the ‘grown-up camera’ brigade. The retro revolution starts here.

Link: Olympus

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