Jun
20
Olympus PEN E-P2 ::First Impressions
Having recently (1o months ago) quit smoking, I decided I needed a prize for doing so and my chosen prize to myself was a brand new Olympus PEN E-P2. It has been a while since I owned a decent camera, unless you count the Sony DCR-SR220 video camera, which I was using for work.
But - I could never see anything on the damn view screen so nothing ever turned out the way I was hoping. One of the disadvantages of living in a sunny area I guess. So, I was determined to buy myself something with a decent viewfinder and my short list included the Olympus PEN range of cameras, the Leica D 4 Lux, the Panasonic DCMLX3, and the Panasonic GF1.
The Leica was too expensive considering it is made by Panasonic also, but the Olympus won out the moment I picked one up. It is like going through a time warp to when they made proper cameras and definitely hits the spot as far as feel and aesthetics goes. I wanted one immediately. The micro four thirds system just resonated with me immediately.
Mine I bought on line from Amazon - seeing as it saved me over E100 to do so. I bought the kit with the EV2 viewfinder and 17mm pancake lens and I am waiting for the 14-150 lens to supplement it with. I love this thing and these are the first test shots using a variety of the built in settings:
Standard, !AUTO, with no adjustment:
Built in Art filter - Grainy Black and White
Same filter, using the 6x6 setting:
PoP Art filter:
Portrait:
Pretentious self portrait mode:
All in all - I am very happy so far. Make no mistake - this is no cheap olympus camera - the cheap one is the EP 1L which has a plastic body and a built in flash. I paid E920 buying it through Amazon, which is considerably less than the E1,100 retail cost in France. The only issue I have is the Olympus instruction manual that came with it is in German. My German is very, very rusty...............
Go - buy one now. 
They are superb. Can hardly wait to get another lens and maybe a flash, although it will shoot at up to 6400 iso, so perhaps not going to bother with a flash.
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Olympus Pen E-P2 Micro 4/3 Digital Camera Body (Black) $209.95 The stylish retro black metal body of the PEN E-P2 may be reminiscent of a traditional rangefinder, but there's nothing traditional about this powerful camera from Olympus. The E-P2 is a 12.3-megapixel interchangeable lens camera, and it blends the high-quality still images of a DSLR with High Definition (HD) video, stereo Linear PCM audio recording and in-camera creativity – all inside an ultr... |
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Olympus PEN E-P2 12.3 MP Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens and Electronic View Finder $1,099.99 OLYMPUS 262830 12.3 Megapixel E-P2 Pen Camera Kit (Includes M. Zuiko 14–42mm zoom)... |
