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Looks like the Olympus boys have resurrected the venerable Pen series into one very lovely interchangable-lens camera: link

phongn wrote:Looks like the Olympus boys have resurrected the venerable Pen series into one very lovely interchangable-lens camera: link

Goddamn you, I was about to make a thread on that in G&C .

The E1-P looks SWEET, i've been tracking the technology and waiting for this for a looong time. I won't buy it, since the screen isn't good enough for me yet, and first generation tech isn't my cup of tea (and I want a built in flash and better lenses first). That, and well, all of my cash went on my new & used 17-55 2.8 & 70-300. (So I'm sure as hell not going to spend 900$ on a new system, as much as I love Olympus and consider Canon to be overrated).

Weirdest thing is the crappiness of the 17mm kit prime lens, at 2.8, what's the point? It's not as though prime lenses are desired by people buying right out of the box (it's a third lens type of choice, after a wideangle and a tele zoom), followed by the 230,000 screen and the lack of a built in flash. Annoying

The 17/2.8 is small and makes perfect sense for such a tiny camera. It keeps the lines very well - and have you seen the zooms on that camera? They look comical! And people thinking of spending nearly $1K on a camera probably realize the value of a good prime.

phongn wrote:Looks like the Olympus boys have resurrected the venerable Pen series into one very lovely interchangable-lens camera: link

Nice. If they come out with a 1.8 prime I'm all over it, 2.8 isn't quite fast enough for some of the things I want to do with it like mountain bike action photos in poor lighting. Unfortunately, thanks to forests & clouds, it's hard to get enough light to freeze the action on most days without a fast lens.

aerius wrote:Nice. If they come out with a 1.8 prime I'm all over it, 2.8 isn't quite fast enough for some of the things I want to do with it like mountain bike action photos in poor lighting. Unfortunately, thanks to forests & clouds, it's hard to get enough light to freeze the action on most days without a fast lens.

You can use get a Four-Thirds to Micro Four Thirds adapter (or an OM-MFT ... or even a Leica M to MFT, though you'd lose autofocus and auto-aperture). There are a few 1.4 lenses for the FT system - Panasonic/Leica 25/1.4, Sigma 30/1.4 and the Sigma 50/1.4, all of which probably weigh more than the camera itself

phongn wrote:The 17/2.8 is small and makes perfect sense for such a tiny camera. It keeps the lines very well - and have you seen the zooms on that camera? They look comical! And people thinking of spending nearly $1K on a camera probably realize the value of a good prime.

LOL. No, a lot don't, I've seen a Lot of people totting around a 40D or D300 with a 70-200 and absolutely no idea about photography/camera taking (As in "Shoot in auto, how do you turn the flash on?"). A lot more people use the camera as it is out of the box than you'd think, a 700-900$ camera is expensive, but not so much that you won't see tons of rich amateurs (well, not amateurs like you or me, but amateurs as in people who just want an expensive/pretty=good camera, like lawyers or businessmen) with this. I consider a prime an essential purchase, but as a third purchase (After zooms), and it's a strange choice for a kit lens.

aerius wrote:

phongn wrote:Looks like the Olympus boys have resurrected the venerable Pen series into one very lovely interchangable-lens camera: link

Nice. If they come out with a 1.8 prime I'm all over it, 2.8 isn't quite fast enough for some of the things I want to do with it like mountain bike action photos in poor lighting. Unfortunately, thanks to forests & clouds, it's hard to get enough light to freeze the action on most days without a fast lens.

There's a 20mm F1.7 micro 4/3 coming out very soon (might be out already). Pancake sized (that means tiny) . I'm tempted to buy this camera for that lens combination alone, a compact sized DSLR with a 1.7F lens? You'd be unstoppable! (Henri Cartier Bresson, eat your heart out!).

phongn wrote:

aerius wrote:Nice. If they come out with a 1.8 prime I'm all over it, 2.8 isn't quite fast enough for some of the things I want to do with it like mountain bike action photos in poor lighting. Unfortunately, thanks to forests & clouds, it's hard to get enough light to freeze the action on most days without a fast lens.

You can use get a Four-Thirds to Micro Four Thirds adapter (or an OM-MFT ... or even a Leica M to MFT, though you'd lose autofocus and auto-aperture). There are a few 1.4 lenses for the FT system - Panasonic/Leica 25/1.4, Sigma 30/1.4 and the Sigma 50/1.4, all of which probably weigh more than the camera itself

Yeah, there aren't many low light primes for the system, oddly enough. Lots of amazing zooms (there's a 2.0-2.8 zoom if you're filthy rich, or the 12-60 2.8-3.5 zoom), but the only primes apart from the 1.7 and the new 2.8 I can think of is a 2.8 Olympus MAcro lens.
But the F1.7 20mm lens makes up for that .

phongn wrote:You can use get a Four-Thirds to Micro Four Thirds adapter (or an OM-MFT ... or even a Leica M to MFT, though you'd lose autofocus and auto-aperture). There are a few 1.4 lenses for the FT system - Panasonic/Leica 25/1.4, Sigma 30/1.4 and the Sigma 50/1.4, all of which probably weigh more than the camera itself

Hmmm...so in theory I could use the 40/1.4 from my Pen FT and stick it on the new Olympus? It would still be too big for me to carry it around, plus I need a wide angle or normal lens and not the equivalent of a telephoto.

aerius wrote:

phongn wrote:You can use get a Four-Thirds to Micro Four Thirds adapter (or an OM-MFT ... or even a Leica M to MFT, though you'd lose autofocus and auto-aperture). There are a few 1.4 lenses for the FT system - Panasonic/Leica 25/1.4, Sigma 30/1.4 and the Sigma 50/1.4, all of which probably weigh more than the camera itself

Hmmm...so in theory I could use the 40/1.4 from my Pen FT and stick it on the new Olympus? It would still be too big for me to carry it around, plus I need a wide angle or normal lens and not the equivalent of a telephoto.

A. Yes, you could with an adapter albeit at the cost of losing autofocus capabilities (you'd still have MF).
B. Well, that's what a 20mm (the equilevent of a film 40mm lens due to the sensor's crop factor) F1.7 lens would be for .

Split by request

Official product news release

Oh swank, they even have the leather body jackets & straps of the original Pen series cameras!

On further thought, I don't need to wait for the fast lenses, with the larger sensor I can likely crank the ISO high enough to get the shots I want without any significant noise problems. Then once the faster lenses come along I can dial the ISO back down so I can feel good. Gonna get myself a nice silver one with the brown body jacket. I can do at least 95% of my photography with the 17/2.8 prime.

Rumour has it that Panasonic's 20/1.7 pancake is supposed to come out this fall.

DEATH wrote:Weirdest thing is the crappiness of the 17mm kit prime lens, at 2.8, what's the point? It's not as though prime lenses are desired by people buying right out of the box (it's a third lens type of choice, after a wideangle and a tele zoom), followed by the 230,000 screen and the lack of a built in flash. Annoying

It's in keeping with the original Pen series half-frame cameras. The standard lens on those was a 38 or 40mm prime, which is roughly equal to a 55mm prime on a 35mm film camera. My Pen FT (used to my dad's) came with a 40/1.4 prime, and unless I'm trying to shoot an airshow it'll almost everything I want. The other thing is the market for this camera isn't the normal DSLR customer, it's going after people like me who need a camera that's compact enough to carry anywhere and which can still take excellent quality pictures. I can't stuff a Nikon D80 in my jacket pocket, but I can most certainly do that with the Pen EP-1 if I have the 17/2.8 kit lens mounted on it. It's all about convenience & quality, it'll take way better pictures than a point & shoot while being nearly as easy to carry around. There's no way I'm carrying a D80 or other DSLR anywhere with me, they might take slightly nicer pictures than the EP-1 but it doesn't matter since the camera won't be there to take the photo in the first place.

phongn wrote:Rumour has it that Panasonic's 20/1.7 pancake is supposed to come out this fall.

The official release schedule has it as coming out fall of 2009.

aerius wrote: On further thought, I don't need to wait for the fast lenses, with the larger sensor I can likely crank the ISO high enough to get the shots I want without any significant noise problems. Then once the faster lenses come along I can dial the ISO back down so I can feel good. Gonna get myself a nice silver one with the brown body jacket. I can do at least 95% of my photography with the 17/2.8 prime.

Oh come ON, do yourself a favour and wait for the 20mm 1.7 . It's also a pancake, and unless it's significantly more expensive, better in every way (And you need every ounce of magnification you can get for bike stuff ).
The lower aperture should also afford a rather useful DOF, what with the smaller size of the 4/3 sensor. (The bigger the sensor, the less DoF you get for a given aperture).

Screw waiting, I'm getting the camera as soon as it comes out so I can put it to good use, and then I'll buy the 20/1.7 when it comes out.

aerius wrote:Screw waiting, I'm getting the camera as soon as it comes out so I can put it to good use, and then I'll buy the 20/1.7 when it comes out.

Moneywaster! At least get a zoom (the wideangle 14-42 or the super compact long range telezoom) rather than a crappy (relatively) prime! You can use the zoom for bike/action shots, you know you want to... (You can keep the prime for baby shots, once you get some )

I'm not getting a zoom lens because it'll make the camera too damn big to carry around, plus I don't need one unless I'm taking pictures of the annual Toronto airshow. And if I'm doing that I'm better off getting one of the adapters and picking up a nice long telephoto lens from one of the local pawn shops.

aerius wrote:I'm not getting a zoom lens because it'll make the camera too damn big to carry around, plus I don't need one unless I'm taking pictures of the annual Toronto airshow. And if I'm doing that I'm better off getting one of the adapters and picking up a nice long telephoto lens from one of the local pawn shops.

The point is that they have very small and compact zooms as well! Zooms, especially telephoto ones are almost useless without autofocus, especially not for what you want to use it for.
Just look at the lenses in the shop before you buy it

I think I might just recomend this for my mom, who is looking for a new camera by next summer.

The Micro 4/3rds format is looking better and better all the time.

DEATH wrote:The point is that they have very small and compact zooms as well!

Yeah, but they're still too big & slow, which means I'm not going to have them when I need them.

Zooms, especially telephoto ones are almost useless without autofocus, especially not for what you want to use it for.

Pffft, I learned to take photos in the days before autofocus (I should note that I've been taking pictures since before you were born ) so the lack of autofocus and other automatic features isn't a problem for me. Besides, if I can take mountain bike action photos with a fully manual camera, an airshow's not going to be any harder since all I need to do is leave the focus just a bit short of infinity while stopping the lens down a bit for a half-decent DoF.

aerius wrote:

DEATH wrote:The point is that they have very small and compact zooms as well!

Yeah, but they're still too big & slow, which means I'm not going to have them when I need them.

Those zooms are damn tiny .

Zooms, especially telephoto ones are almost useless without autofocus, especially not for what you want to use it for.

Pffft, I learned to take photos in the days before autofocus (I should note that I've been taking pictures since before you were born ) so the lack of autofocus and other automatic features isn't a problem for me. Besides, if I can take mountain bike action photos with a fully manual camera, an airshow's not going to be any harder since all I need to do is leave the focus just a bit short of infinity while stopping the lens down a bit for a half-decent DoF.

Yes, but, well, you don't have a single shot there that i'd call good.

I was like "huh? A digital pen? What's that all about?" when I saw the thread title. Now that I see it's a camera, and a very spiffy one at that, I must have one of my own to carry with me everywhere I go. I think I'll have mine in white with a brown body jacket.