Olympus E-PM2 Just Arrived

[Erik_Olympus]

At first I was a bit disappointed with the image quality and ability to focus with standard 4/3 lenes. However, I wasn't really taking advantage of the much better high ISO performance of the camera. This shot was taken with the 4/3 40-150mm at 1/30 sec, 40mm, F/4.0, ISO 640. As you can see there was quite a bit of motion blurring and focus seems to be on the ref and not the ball.


P2090314[1] by erikzen, on Flickr

As I realized that very useable images were possible at higher ISOs I was able to improve image quality although focus is still not ideal with 4/3 lenses. The image of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show below was taken with the Olympus 4/3 70-300mm, 1/200 sec, 120mm, F/5.6, ISO 1600.


P2110621[1] by erikzen, on Flickr

As I've seen mentioned before, the camera seems to be a bit heavy on the reds, at least using Auto WB. The following photos were shot under very adverse lighting conditions and are not pretty in the least. However, the first photo below shows a reddish tint using Auto WB.


P2150647[1] by erikzen, on Flickr

Switching to Incandescent yields more natural results.


P2150649[1] by erikzen, on Flickr

Despite somewhat slow auto focus, the 70-300 seems to produce very nice image quality. The following was taken outdoors at 1/500, 300mm, F/5.6, ISO 200.


P2080034[2] by erikzen, on Flickr

All in all I'm pleased with the camera although I don't think it's a direct replacement for a DSLR. I also think my plan of relying solely on my existing 4/3 lens collection is not really working out. I bought a used m4/3 14-42mm lens just to see if performance improved, and it did considerably. Yes, the 4/3 lenses fully work but when compared to native lenses, the autofocus is a real dog. For now, I will live with it as my main camera although I think I may eventually get another DSLR, but I'm going to give it a month or two to get used to the camera.

One other point, I found focusing much easier when I changed from the overall grid that had 35 (?) focus points to a single focus point. Having all those focus points made it difficult to control where the camera was actually focusing.