Last Friday's night of drinking at a friend's house (while watching the
RiffTrax of Christopher Walken's seminal masterpiece
McBain) resulted in last Saturday's trolling of digital photography blogs. Which, in turn, led to me trolling eBay last Sunday and finding a camera that I certainly didn't need, but that I really, really wanted.
Behold, my "new to me" Olympus PEN E-P3:
This sexy little beast is wearing a custom leather wrist strap and the Olympus 14-150mm f 4-5.6 lens that I've had on my E-P1 for the last couple of years.
"But if you already had an E-P1, why would you want an E-P3?"
Several reasons.
1) Built-in flash. One of the weaknesses the Micro 4/3 cameras have fought so valiantly to overcome since their introduction in 2009 is their performance in low-light conditions. The relatively large sensor takes fantastically clear pictures any time the sun is shining, but they're kind of crap for low-light conditions, especially indoors. Or at night. Or indoors at night. So while the E-P1 is great as a "walking around" camera, it's sucks for taking pics at a barbecue or party.
Having the, as Kai from
DigitalRev TV calls it, built-in "poppy-uppy-flashy" makes this an even more well-rounded, do it all camera. And that's what I wanted.
Yes, the E-P1 has a hot shoe. I could easily justify an external flash if I were planning to use the camera for specific events and would have a "standard" load out. But one of the big reasons I bought the PEN in the first place was that it's small enough to fit in my motorcycle tank bag. The giant tele lens sticking off the front isn't an issue, but an external flash doubling the height of the camera would be a deal breaker.
2) Faster auto focus. Another "shortcoming" of Micro 4/3 cameras at release was abysmally slow auto focus performance. Especially in low light conditions. (Are you seeing a pattern here...?) This was largely due to the use of Contrast-Detecting AF system. Worked fine if you had time to compose your shots and your subjects weren't going anywhere. Not so much for action photography. It was a known issue, and one many M 4/3 users learned how to work around.
Some of the lenses that were released later - my 14-150, for example - improved greatly over the original kit lenses. Still, it could have been better.
And now it is.
When it was released, Olympus claimed the E-P3 had the
world's fastest auto focus. I've watched a bunch of YouTube videos of people comparing the E-P3's auto focus to all sorts of other cameras, from other M 4/3's, to other large-sensor mirrorless cameras, to DSLR's of every brand and level. Is it the "World's Fastest?" I don't know. But it's pretty damn fast.
3) Touch screen. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, initially. I've dealt with non-touch screen cameras since I got my first digi-cam back when people still called them digi-cams. That said, having played with the touch screen on this thing, I don't think I'll ever go back.
It's got this really cool
touch focus/touch shutter function, which is exactly what it sounds like. You touch the area on the screen that you want to focus on. You can go into the menus and adjust the size of the focus reticule, allowing you to focus as accurately as you could want. Alternatively, you can manual focus using the lenses' built in focus ring. It's fly by wire, so it doesn't really give you very much tactile feedback, but as soon as you turn the focus ring it automatically zooms in on wherever your focus reticule is so that you can get sharper manual focus.
"That's all well and good, but what does that mean for me, the reader?"
Simple: I'm gonna play amateur photog and you're gonna have to deal with it. I won't claim to be anything other than a talentless hack of a lens jockey. But I have a new toy and this is my place to share the crappy pics I take with it.
For instance:
And just as sort of a demonstration of what that incredibly phallic telephoto lens is capable of, take a look at this picture.
The little dots between me and the white house in the background? These guys:
Both pictures taken from the same location (by the tennis courts at Boltz, headed over toward the 9th hole of the frisbee golf course), the first one zoomed all the way out, the second zoomed all the way in.
That's all for now. A friend just asked me for some help kicking a keg left over from his wedding reception. It's a rough life. Cheers!
