Some thoughts about what Olympus seems to have gotten right and wrong with their first Micro Four Thirds camera:

What they got right (in no particular order):

• Image stabilization (IS) in the body: Olympus leaves IS out of it’s its smallest DSLRs, so I was concerned they might leave it out of the E-P1.  They didn't.
• Size: As expected, the E-P1 leverages the compact potential of Micro 4/3 in a way that the Panasonic cameras have not.
• Dust reduction: All interchangeable lens digital cameras should have this; unfortunately, not all do, but the E-P1 does.
• Looks: Obviously subjective, but the silver and black E-P1 looks great to me.  Would be nice to see an all-black version as well.
  
• Image quality: This is a very preliminary impression, obviously, and made without any RAW files to examine.  The pre-production sample JPEGs at DPReview and elsewhere look very good and seem to support Olympus' statement regarding the use of a lighter antialiasing filter.  High ISO performance also seems to be quite good for this format.
  
• SD/SDHC memory card: Many thought Olympus might have gone the xD card route.  Thankfully, they did not.
• VF-1 external viewfinder is bundled with the E-P1 + 17mm lens kit (according to the latest press release).
• Movie mode allows manual aperture control.
• Battery is the same BLS-1 lithium-ion battery used in the Olympus E-620 and ought to provide better than average battery life in this camera. 
• Shot-to-shot times are short according to DCRP.

• Weather sealing/resistance
  
• Multi-aspect ratio sensor like the one in the Panasonic GH1
• Optional add-on EVF
• Distance indicator or focusing tab for the 17mm lens. Olympus missed a great opportunity here to control their focus-by-wire manual focus system based on focus tab positioning.  What a difference that would make for documentary photography!
• MP4 (eg, H.264 MP4) would have allowed better video quality/file size.  Instead, they opted for M-JPEG (.AVI) format, presumably because this older format is more widely supported. 
• A faster 17mm pancake lens would have made it much easier for me to pull the trigger on ordering an E-P1 kit.  Instead, I am tempted to wait for this lens on the Panasonic road map:
  
  In 35mm photography terms of framing and depth of field (DOF) control, it's the difference between a 34mm f/5.6 lens and a 40mm f/3.4 lens.  The Olympus lens should be available sooner and may prove superior, but nearly 1.5 stops more light and greater DOF control is difficult to ignore.  That said, one has to wonder what Panasonic is sacrificing to make a lens that fast yet that small.  We'll know soon.

• LCD resolution (230k dot) is below the current standard for high end cameras.  

• Autofocus speed: There have been conflicting reports about this in the existing previews.  However, most of the reports are not super-encouraging (eg, DCRP).
  
• 17mm f/2.8 lens rendering: DPR published a whole series of sample images with this lens, yet the lowest f-stop they used was f/6.3. Update: two photos at f/2.8 added here and here.  Lenstip.com has published samples here.
  
• Shutter release sound: As the Panasonic G1 shutter sound was disappointingly loud to many some (not me), it will be interesting to learn about the shutter sound of the E-P1.  Update: Imaging Resource has a comparison between the Leica M4 and E-P1 shutter sounds (link).
  

The Olympus E-P1 is available for pre-order at Amazon.

Prices with links to pre-order pages:

E-P1 Body Only - $699.99

E-P1 with 14-42mm Lens - $799.99(White Body/Silver Lens)

E-P1 with 14-42mm Lens (Silver Body/Black Lens) - $799.99

E-P1 with 17mm f/2.8 Lens (Silver) - $899.99

Remember that while Amazon fulfills pre-orders in the order received, you lose your place in the queue if you go back at a later date and change anything in the order (for example the shipping method).

The E-P1 has been officially released and DPReview has am excellent interview with Akira Watanabe, product planning manager of Olympus's SLR division. One of the many interesting facts Watanabe shared was the fact that Olympus is using automatic lens distortion correction in order to keep Micro Four Thirds lenses as small as possible.

Readers of this blog will know that software correction of lens barrel distortion is what allowed Panasonic to design such a compact and fast wide zoom for the LX3. The similarly compact Olympus ZD 25mm f/2.8 lens for Four Thirds also had a significant degree of barrel distortion; however, this was uncorrected in software.

Although I am excited to see the tiny 17mm f/2.8 lens from Olympus and prototype 20mm f/1.7 lens from Panasonic, both for the Micro Four Thirds system, I do hope that they haven't gone too far in relying on software correction of lens distortion. For one thing, distortion correction comes at a cost in terms of resolution. Another consequence is that third-party RAW support for the distortion correction will likely lag considerably. Wonder why Apple's Aperture still doesn't support the LX3? I don't know the answer, but I suspect it has to do with Apple's failure to address the severe barrel distortion of that lens.

The Watanabe review presents more information about Micro Four Thirds than just the bit about automatic lens distortion correction. I was pleased to learn that Olympus' new image processor has allowed them to use a lighter antialiasing filter.

Link: DPR - More in the Micro Four Thirds pipeline

Although the official announcement of the new Olympus E-P1 will be tomorrow afternoon, June 16th in Tokyo, images and specs have appeared all over the net. The camera will come with a 12.3 mp livemos sensor and a 3" LCD screen with 230,000 pixels. In auto mode the ISO range will be from 200 to 3200 and in manual mode from 100 to 6400. The first sample images can be seen here.

The camera will have the following file formats: 12 bit RAW, jpeg, RAW + jpeg, and AVI motion jpeg. Both sRGB and AdobeRGB are available as color spaces. The camera will be able to capture a maximum of 14 RAW photographs in a burst. It can capture images in the image ratios 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, and 6:6. And when you shoot in RAW the image ratio will recorded in the EXIF data. The first lenses to be released will be a 14-42mm f/3.5-f/5.6 zoom lens and a 17mm f/2.8 prime lens.

The camera will also have a 720p HD movie mode, but there is still no mentioning of the available framerates. Recording will be on SD and SDHC cards with a maximum duration of 7 minutes in HD mode and 14 minutes in SD mode.

More news tomorrow.

What do we gain by using small cameras, and what do we give up in exchange? Lloyd Davis shares his thoughts on the current state of compacts versus DSLRs after taking a walk with the Canon G9 and Olympus E-3.

Link: Thoreau Photography