The official UK launch of the highly anticipated and long awaited m4/3 camera from Olympus was today. Olympus chose the Jessops store near Tottenham Court Road in London for the event and has even invited photographer David Bailey for the event.
Judging from the high interest the camera generated in forums and on various photography websites and blogs I expected a lot of people to show up and so it was. The people I spoke to all wanted the same, a compact camera capable of producing dSLR like image quality but also allowing them to swap lenses. The Olympus E-P1 certainly is the first camera to deliver on both counts.

Although it was busy and most people wanted some hands-on with the camera, I managed to try out a few samples and will try to give a quick impression and compare it briefly with the GRD II and Sigma DP2.



The first thing I noticed was that the camera is actually a bit bigger than I expected, especially with the zoom lens attached and if you extend the lens it becomes even bigger. On pictures it always looks relatively small and while it is by far not a big camera, it is not as small as the DP2 and not really close to the GRD II. With the pancake lens it becomes a lot smaller and I would say it is more or less the size of a DP2 with the optional OVF attached. The GRD II feels pretty small compared to it, if yu attach the GV-1 OVF and the lens hood you will get a similar size. Overall it is jacket pocketable but only with the Pancake lens attached and then you need solid pockets as the camera is heavy.


Speaking of the weight, you might have seen the pictures of the all plastic insides posted in various forums recently and while the insides might be plastic it surely weights a lot and the outside is solid metal. It feels very solid and I would say it is as solid as the GRD II and the Olympus dSLRs they had around. The feel of the camera is great, Olympus made sure the camera feels great to hold. There is no comparison at all with the DP2 which feels plasticky and flimsy due to the poor choice of plastic for the buttons and lens barrel. The hand grip is also nice and does make holding it much easier and more secure, a grip should be standard on any serious compact camera if you ask me.
One thing about the build I did not like was the fairly bright green LED around the power button, here I hope Olympus can release a firmware update to turn it off as Ricoh did on the GRD II.

There have been concerns expressed regarding the low resolution of the LCD screen. While the resolution is not really as important in my view as the refresh rate and the viewing angles, I found it perfectly ok. Everything was easy to read and detailed on the screen. Using manual focus with the screen enlargement on was no problem and it was easy to see when the picture was in focus. The viewing angles and refresh rate are comparable with the GRD II screen and so very good, nothing like the poor DP2 screen. It should be easy to use the screen even outdoors from the look of it and take low level shots with the viewing angles.
One issue I found with the screen is if you point it at something black or in very low light it gets very noisy, full of banding and desaturates almost completely. This was very strange as it was fine when you focused and the pictures turned out fine but it seems the signal boost in low light is causing this. I tried different samples and had this problem with all of them.

The controls are all intuitive and work very fast, having two wheels is a good idea although the 4-way navigation pad could be a bit bigger to avoid accidental presses. You can change all important settings without going into the menu, the buttons are all clearly labeled and not black on black as on the Sigma DP2. The GRD II however still has the edge when it comes to controls.

The AF has also been highlighted as a potential problem in a few reviews. I have to say, it is not lightning fast and far from the speed of the Panasonic G1 or a dSLR but it is slightly faster then the AF on the GRD II and also faster than the AF on the DP2. The zoom lens takes also longer to focus than the pancake lens. I also find the zoom lens way too big, if it's full extended it is as big as a normal 4/3 lens. Overall I would rather get the E-P1 kit with the pancake lens as I was not overly impressed with the zoom lens.


I have also tried the OVF and there is one definite issue with using it. On the GRD II there is a small LED next to the hot shoe which will light up once focus is achieved, there is no such LED or visual confirmation on the E-P1 so you have to either use the sounds or guess. I have mentioned this to Olympus and hope a firmware update can maybe have the 'SSWF' or 'Power LED' blinking when focus is achieved and the OVF is used.
Other than this the OVF is ok, not as good quality as the Ricoh OVFs which are produced by CV but better than the Sigma DP1 OVF. Like the Sigma DP1 OVF this is made out of plastic but has a thin aluminium cover, both are not very bright but the frame lines should be seen ok. It feels overall a bit flimsy and if you need a OVF I would recommend getting a CV OVF.

These are my impressions so far, I walked out without buying a E-P1 although I was very tempted. The E-P1 looks and feels like a great camera and I really like the design but it is too early to buy. The camera is a bit too big and I would like to have at least one good wide angle lens available for it.