Olympus E-P 2 Camera Review

I recently purchased an Olympus PEN E-P 2 camera, after much deliberation. I needed something to replace my last camera which was stolen, and although the latest crop of digital SLRs are pretty spectacular I find them also boring and predictable. I also wanted something I could carry while mountain biking in France, and the DSLRs are a bit bulky.

I looked at a number of compact cameras and found them all wanting – largely because I have great difficulty seeing anything on the view screens in bright sunlight – and I live in the Cote D'Azur. I was tempted by both the Leica D-Lux 4 and the Panasonic DMC-LX3, which is exactly the same camera only half the price – but – I wanted interchangeable lenses. If I could have lived with a single lens option I would probably have bought the Panasonic.

Then - I discovered the Olympus PEN range of cameras, and it was love at first sight. I knew I could stop looking the moment I picked one up. There are 3 in the range, but the E-P 2 hit the spot. With the 17mm pancake lens attached it is easily small enough to carry on a bicycle - admittedly a little bigger than some of the compacts – but it comes with an incredibly bright digital viewfinder attachment that fits to the flash shoe and that totally sold me.

No more pissing about trying to keep the sun off the view screen. Love it! You have to buy one. :)

This is my new toy, and rather than write a completely boring and technical Olympus e-p 2 review, I will just go ahead and sing its praises and show some shots I have taken. If you want to know all the technical specs visit the Olympus website. I cannot tell the difference between 12.3 mega pixels and 10.9, and I defy anyone else to unless you print it out 20x30 inches and even then I doubt anyone could. This thing is insanely complicated if you want it to be and you can control everything, and I do mean everything.

I am still considering whether or not to buy a flash – and these next photographs were taken inside an extremely dimly-lit church on auto. With a usable ISO rating of 6400, I am beginning to think I will not bother with a flash. The E-P 1L has a built in flash, but feels and is cheaper thanks to being made of plastic instead of metal. I am hoping the E-P 2 is Mark-proof.

These have been reduced down to less than 1000 pixels wide for ease of uploading, but you get a good idea of the quality.

There are loads of ready-made filters and pre-sets built in and I am still trying them all. These are a few shots taken using some of the built-in filters and I have left them at a higher resolution to give a better idea of quality. Clicking an image will bring up a larger version in another window.These are still not full size as there are limits to uploading here.

As you can see – this is an extremely versatile piece of kit. One of the great things about these built-in filters is how easy it is to switch between them. As I mentioned earlier – you can make this as complicated or as simple as you wish. If you want to set your own white balance based on available lighting – go right ahead. If you want to leave it on everything-auto, you can do and still get great results, plus everything in between.

It also – shockingly – shoots 1280x720 HD video and you can control shutter speeds and use the art filters. Stunning stuff. This is a brief sample – not quite sure why youtube slaughters the quality so badly, but when I find a better way of uploading videos, I will use it because the original is far, far better than this.

I cannot recommend the olympus e-p 2 camera strongly enough. It feels great, is easy to use, shoots fantastic still and video - and I haven't even scratched the surface of its capabilities yet. Everything is under your control if you want it to be - I mean - the instruction book is almost 200 pages long. I am extremely happy with it, and it very much reminds me of the original PEN half frames. Olympus really outdid themselves with the Micro Four Thirds system - this genuinely shoots as good a quality as a digital SLR in a package not much larger than a compact camera. Go - buy one now before they run out. lol I think the best place to buy one is at Amazon - I goty a deal on mine.

My next acquisition will be the 14-150 mm zoom lens when it us available here. Olympus make superb lenses and I am looking forward to getting a hold of that one.

Just remember to buy yourself a flash memory card - it does not come with one and will not work without it. Why they do not include one is beyond me. It takes SDHC cards and you need a class 6 to shoot in HD video. I bought a Transcend 16 GB Class 6 SDHC, and it works just fine. You might want to invest in a UV filter as well - that way when you drop it - the lens is protected.