Pen and me

In my 1^st entry I wrote about my old cameras and my old photos and how I ended up with my Olympus E-PL1. I’ve been using it for more than 2 & ½ years now this is some of the story…

My Pen

Yes, I saw it in the commercial on TV and immediately know I want that camera, but it was not cheap that the price would leave a big hole in my hard earned salary, so I didn’t immediately go to the camera shop and buy it. I waited for months, saving money, and in the mean time I checked the internet for the reviews and also the reviews on similar DSLRS & Digicams from Nikon, Canon, Sony, Panasonic and even other Olympus DSLR. From the reviews I concluded that they are saying that The E-PL1 was an EXCELLENT camera but not as good as DSLR. It was good enough for me.

There are many weaknesses of the E-PL1 that are mentioned in reviews such as the focusing is slow, high noise and short battery life. So when I bought it, I already prepared to accept these weaknesses. The focusing is quiet slow compared to my old Nikon SLR, but faster than my compact camera, that I often missed some action shots. The noise and battery life was not an issue for me because I’m used to compact cameras which perform worse.

But I got the E-PL1 not because of its weaknesses. It was all come down to the size and the price. More importantly was the size. I wanted an excellent photo quality in a small package. I used to have a big SLR, never in professional way, just a hobby, it was the size that put it down. I love good photos but I don’t like to carry big weight of the camera wherever I go. Especially when travelling with my family, I have other stuff to carry, having big cameras just slow us down.

So, those time, I only carry my SLR when there is big events such as the company dinner, my wedding and… (there is not so many big events in my life) and maybe once in a year went on a trip somewhere. The rest of the time such as friend’s wedding, dinner etc I would only carry my compact film cameras. And when I got my first compact digital camera in 2006, I never took another photo with my SLR. And when I got my EPL1, I almost totally stop using my compact camera.

The picture quality, even it is not as good as those of DSLR, but it is good enough for me. I realized how much I love it when I shot some photos in our company dinner stage performance last year and compared it with my old compact digicam … it was stunning.

Dinner stage show in 2010 taken with compact digicam... so noisy, poor color...can't even recognize that guy

Dinner stage show in 2011 , with my E-PL1, very clear indeed.

Another photo in 2011 stage show,  color is nicely captured by the Pen

I even compared it with other DSLR photos taken by others… no so far behind!, even though they are using big external flash, and I was not using any flash.  Of course the slow low light focusing caused many misses, in fact, focus success rate was only 40% out of 300 photos taken. But it was satisfying.

And when I got the new lens 45mm F/1.8, the image quality had gone a quantum leap!

Taken with E-PL1 + 45mm F1.8

So far I’ve taken over 20,000 photos with it and gone to a lot of places with it. From town to the jungle, from Penang to Johor. I’m glad it is small that made it easy to carry around when I’m using it.

One of the photos during road trip around Peninsular Malaysia. On the road for 7 days, glad  my Pen was small & light

I occasionally just carry it around just to take some photos for practice. Sometimes unexpectedly stumbled upon the chance to take special event photos like this one.

So far, I’m satisfied with its performance. I captured photos some that I love to admire over and over again. 

Of course I do longing for a better camera some times, like Olympus just announced – the E-PL5 and E-PM5 with features that make me drooling. They had improved the main issue of this type of camera especially the focusing speed and image quality and added so many features that I don’t have. 

However, there will always be better things ahead, just make the best use of what we have. So, I'll stick with my E-PL1 for now.