Olympus E-PL1

This is my third E-PL1. On the two previous occasions, I bought it as part of a kit, kept the lens and sold the camera on. I generally took a few pictures, noted the performance was virtually identical to what else I had and that was that. On both occasions this has enabled me to get the lens I wanted at a very good price. Having bought this one plus lens from the Olympus refurbished site, I was planning to do the same. However a couple of days ago I wanted a second camera with a longer lens to accompany the Fuji X100, so I decided to take the EPL1 plus Panasonic 45mm f2.8 macro.




Using it for a prolonged period of time however I found I liked the interface much better than the E-P1 and E-P2. I found it much easier to change settings and I found I preferred the menu layout, which while still not perfect as far as I'm concerned, was much less frustrating. I was using the view screen only as I hadn't got the VF-2 viewfinder, and in bright sunlight, wearing dark glasses, it was almost impossible to see, but overall it was an encouraging experience.









Looking at the images on the screen after returning home, I was again impressed. Shot at ISO 100 they were every bit as sharp as the Fuji X100 pictures I took at the same time. (For some reason the 45mm Panasonic Leica lens always seems to perform really well with Olympus cameras.)

I decided to investigate this further and ordered a viewfinder, which arrived overnight from Amazon and I took it out yesterday with Panasonic 7-14mm and Olympus 14-150mm lenses.






Again it performed very well, I found it a pleasure to use, the viewfinder was excellent, as I've found before and the images were nice and sharp. I really should have used the previous two I had more! I've decided to try an E-PL2 now, as it apparently has better build quality.


Overall a good discovery (particularly at the price I bought it for) and one thats somewhat restored my faith in Olympus, which is no bad thing.