Early experiences with the E-P1 (Dale Cotton)
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 05:03PM I've had my E-P1 plus kit zoom all of 60 hours as I write this. No doubt my response to it will mutate over time, but for now here are my early reactions, including my increasingly frenzied attempt to find some combination of settings to allow me to actually use the thing. My perspective: raw file bigot plus landscapist turned snapshot/candids/street shooter, so your mileage may (and, of course, will) vary.
Size
No, the E-P1 is not the magic ultra-miniature pocket-cam with dSLR IQ you may have been dreaming of. The IQ is there, but in size and heft you're better off thinking of it as a somewhat smaller Leica M or as the 35mm compact you or your family happily used in previous decades. It's a camera you can stuff into a little shoulder bag then sling over your shoulders to carry around all day without noticing the weight.
The LCD - Brightness
After several hour's use on a cloudless summer day I can report with some confidence that the LCD really is usable in the dreaded glare of bright midday sunlight. I think some of the mixed opinions on this are due to the screen brightness boost option being buried fairly deep in the menu system and with no text labeling it. But turn that setting up to max before heading out into glaring conditions, and I think you'll find that LCD shooting is at least practical. You might also set one of the many buttons on the back of the camera to the one-press LCD on/off function, as Brian mentions, if you want to conserve battery on an extended outing.
[Wanted: What Olympus needs to do here, is change this from a simple LCD on/off to a three-way: LCD on/bright/off ... sometimes I wonder about engineers... ;).]
The LCD - Resolution
And of course, the other LCD issue is its resolution. Olympus have stated they opted for the lower-res 230K panel over the higher-res option on their latest dSLRs because the 230K screen is the brightest available. As others have observed, the lower res isn't actually bad in practice. The one context I feel it's less than great in is when doing manual focus, at least with the kit zoom. The E-P1 has that nifty instant-mag feature that pops on as soon as you move the focus ring. But so far I seldom feel any confidence that I've nailed that really sweet spot of optimal focus. That's an all too familiar feeling from my 35mm full metal jacket film days, which is the last time I did manual focus. Not sure whether a 900K panel would solve that or not. I would love to, but haven't, experienced the shimmer Brian reports.
AF Speed
All I have to go by is the 14-42 kit zoom (1.0 firmware); and yes it is on the slow side by dSLR standards. Say "one-one-thousand" to get a good feel of the focus interval I'm experiencing or watch the nifty video Brian put up elsewhere in this report. Doesn't seem to matter much what light level I'm working in, either. You can try to put whatever positive spin you want on this, but to me, that's typical compact camera performance. I got out my 10-year-old Olympus C-2020Z and my Panasonic LX1: The C-2020 focuses at about the same speed; the LX1 even seems a bit spritelier. (See both plus E-P1 and Nikon F2 in the photo above.)
Now, I'm anything but an engineering type, but my naive analysis is that the mediocre AF speed comes from a combination of two factors: the speed of the motor that's moving the lens around, plus the nature of the contrast-detect routine employed. By that I mean: a focus event always moves the front element from nearest to furthest focus, recording the contrast at each distance, then zips back to the point of max contrast. It never makes any assumptions so never takes any shortcuts. If you half-press the shutter release button, then let go, then without moving the camera half-press it again, it will repeat exactly the same focus routine with commendable but mindless zeal.
Those who live or die by AF speed shouldn't have this camera in the first place, but for the rest of us, this deliberate CD/AF routine is something Olympus could theoretically improve with a firmware upgrade, should they ever find a better approach. In the meantime, check out any typical point&shoot digital compact if you want to get a rough feel for the E-P1's kit lens focus speed.
Since I often work with moving subjects, including young children and pets, I would of course love to have phase detect AF speed at my disposal. But in most situations I'm finding it's quite practical to pre-set the focus, then rely on that together with a goodly measure of DOF to handle the focus issue. There are a number of ways to achieve this built into the E-P1's interface, so I'm happy.
Exposure Modes
Another major camera control issue, that no one else seems to fret much over, is exposure control. Having a major phobia for blown highlights (what would the Greek word for that be? hyperphotophobia?), I don't normally get along well with pattern metering and frankly I'm finding ESP an especially contrary opponent. (Pattern meters want to centre the exposure, I want to preserve the highlights, and apparently ne'er the twain shall meet.)
I've long since worked out a truly fast and elegant solution to this on my Pentax dSLR using the spot meter, but no directly parallel solution seems to be available on the E-P1.
In one sense the E-P1 is truly an exposure-freak's dream come true. One approach I've found is to work in Av mode plus ESP, have the live histogram on screen, thumb the circular dial around the 4-way controller to adjust exposure compensation (shutter speed) as needed, then hit the AEL button to hold that setting for the duration of my shooting in that light. (A bunch of custom settings are needed deep in the menu tree; but it's a one-time project to set that up.)
[Wanted: While this is already majorly nifty it's time consuming and distraction. The obvious solution here is for Olympus to add a new exposure mode: highlight-preservation ESP (and of course just for completeness shadow-preservation ESP).]
A similar approach I'm also exploring is available in M/manual mode, since there you set the aperture with one dial and the shutter speed with the other.
[Wanted: Here Olympus engineers missed out on another little trick - one they could have lifted from any recent Pentax. Anyone who uses manual knows the prime irritant is that the shutter or aperture or both are invariably set to something wildly inappropriate from your last use of the camera. But on Pentax cameras pressing a certain button while in manual mode causes the exposure to be zeroed to the current meter reading.]
Battery Life
Another question that's been frequently raised in the E-P1's first days has been battery life. After leaving the battery to charge fully over night, the camera's had multiple hours of shooting / experimenting / menu exploration with no sign of the dreaded low battery icon. Let the battery charge over night again, but on the second day I did have the camera run out of juice in the middle of my third outing of the day. My experience is that a new Li-ion battery doesn't hit its full stride until after several days of use/recharging, so I'm not ready to make a final call yet.
Field Report
Background: I'm perfectly happy with my trusty dSLR for landscapes and other static subject matter. My main reason for shelling out for yet another camera is to take pictures of homo sap. sap. in its native habitat - without disturbing the very behaviour I'm trying to capture. Naturally, the first thing I tried was erecting a duck blind on the streets of downtown Toronto, but somehow that didn't quite do the trick. Somehow people still seemed to take note of my presence.
What I've since found is that the best approach is not to try to hide from observation but to pass oneself off as one of the natives and so disappear into the background. Yet, no matter one's disguise, as soon as one holds a large black SLR to one's eyes and takes aim, everyone in the vicinity naturally startles then runs for cover.
The trick is to use what at least looks to be the same type camera the natives themselves use (any one of several species of point&shoot digital compact); and, further, to use it in the same fashion (held out to compose via LCD). Using an actual p&s is of course an option, but not ideal for image quality even in good light, and certainly not in low light or indoors. Hence, the E-P1.
First Outings: My first attempt at this was along the north shore of exotic Lake Ontario in southern Canada. It being early summer, a local tribe of the colourful Bourgeois Ontarian population could already be found practicing their strange and colourful water rituals on sunny afternoons.
Most importantly, I can happily report that the basic stratagem worked brilliantly. I freely circulated among the natives, taking dozens of snapshots, without causing the least disturbance. I even ventured so far as to deliberately target young female specimens - something their parents are usually particularly skittish about - with again no outcry of any sort.
Also: as mentioned above I could in fact see the LCD (barely) well enough to compose and control the camera.
That's the good news. Less good - but in significant measure due to my relative inexperience with the camera - I had no end of trouble trying to juggle exposure and focus settings. Simply letting the camera do its AF and ESP dance before each shutter release guaranteed that any fleeting instant of favourable circumstance had long since disappeared in the second between my pulling the trigger and the camera actually responding by exposing a frame. Further, I had so little confidence that the AF was getting the job done, that I had to chimp (play back the last frame on the LCD) after nearly every frame.
Next, I tried pre-setting both exposure and focus before each series of shots. This actually worked but I had no real assurance this was so at the time, in spite my repeated chimping. So long as the camera doesn't have to do either AF or exposure, shutter response is quite good. There still remains something like a one-and-a-half or two second hiatus between one shot and the next, but that's no different than re-cocking the film advance with a 35mm camera.
The issue that I decidedly haven't resolved yet is how to change the shutter speed for each change in light level. On this outing I was on a boardwalk extending from east to west. The sun was to the west, so the required EV varied by several stops depending on which direction my subject of the moment chose to dash toward. The pattern meter was worse than useless (from my hyperphotophobic perspective), so I had no choice but to keep furiously thumbing the aperture wheel.
One trick I've used with the LX1 is to let the meter in Av mode control aperture, pan around the scene until the histogram looks acceptable then hit AEL. That would be fine, except if I dedicate the AEL to exposure lock, I no longer have a mechanism for focus lock and so must go through a focus cycle at least once per exposure (rough, I know).
[Desperately wanted: A change to the firmware allowing any unused button in addition to AEL to function as a S-AF trigger when the camera is otherwise in MF mode.]
Reader Comments (4)
Dale - fantastic report - just reading through now...
1. the LCD resolution section - the shimmer I noticed was in fine textured well lit subjects - and with a smooth manual focusing prime lens. The kit lens, being fly by wire may be too course to see the effect.
2. CDAF focusing routines and speed will *inevitably* be improved... how much improvement comes to the E-P1 will be a political decision with Olympus - how much to let us have as free firmware upgrades before the next camera... with improved hardware offers a more significant speedup. This is going to be a major area of development over the coming months and years. One thing I notice that Panasonic do - is to periodically refocus without being triggered... so can happen to be in the right spot when you're ready to take the shot.
3. 'looking like a tourist' is a major advantage of using this camera - any eye level viewfinder would lose that advantage. Most people don't get that yet... also, using any of the larger ZD lenses with the 4/3rds adapter will likely blow your cover also. We need more m4/3rds lenses Olympus! and at least HG quality please.
4. Have you tried going to manual exposure, and having the histogram present as a guide? I've found myself doing that more often with the E-P1 - the histogram seems pretty accurate.
Cheers
Brian
Thanks, Brian, glad you like it. I was a bit concerned you might find it too critical. I always go through an initial phase of struggling with a new camera before finding a practical modus operandi. At that point I can settle into a comfortable routine of actually taking pictures and forgetting about the camera. If no such pragmatic approach can be found within the 14 day return period offered by my local retailer (Henry's), back goes the camera. (Hear that, E-P1? You're on probation.)
2. "how much improvement comes to the E-P1 will be a political decision with Olympus". Good point. Also, if the current firmware proves to be the best they can do and future improvements require changes to hardware, then we'll just have to make do if the changes are to the body, or we'll just have to shell out if it's a new lens design. I took my E-P1 to the retailer today and tried the Panasonic 14-45 kit zoom from the G1. I actually didn't notice a significant difference in AF speed there in the store. In any case, it's not really a burning issue for me personally - I raise it on behalf of others who actually need the speed. What's critical for my shtick is that the camera fire instantly when I press the shutter release.
4. "Have you tried going to manual exposure, and having the histogram present as a guide?" - Yes, I've worked with both that and with Av. The problem with manual is having to continually redial exposure comp. from moment to moment (the east/west example I mentioned above). The problem with Av is needing to reserve the AEL/AFL button for AEL, which prevents my using your trick of assigning AF-S to that button.
The key value of the Safari Group is that our members are completely free to voice their opinions - instead of trying to second guess what the market wants (dpreview forums are full of those kind of pundits) we say what *we* want, and whether the camera satisfies *our* needs. Considered in context - those opinions have as much (or more) validity as an 'objective' lab review imho.
The focus speed is certainly capable of improving through firmware updates - and future cams will have faster processors, perhaps more memory to assist intelligent focusing... Panasonic are ahead of the game on that at the moment - but I think the arms race is on!
Regarding exposure - I've got the rotating dial to set aperture, and the silver thumbwheel to set shutter speed... the thumbwheel is very fast to adjust exposure... keeping an eye on the histogram, exposure can be managed extremely quickly.
Cheers
Brian
I also took a photo to give some perspective on the size of the E-P1...
Show in the photo... E-P1 with the 14-42 kit lens attached. Above it is the m4/3 Panasonic 45-200 lens. Below it is the standard 4/3 25mm f/2.8 pancake with adaptor. Standard iPhone and common cordless phone to the left. Behind it is an Ikon rangefinder film camera.
Click here for picture.
Overall I like the size of it... it feels sturdy, but it small and light.