The Online Photographer

Olympus E-P1 Comments, Part III: Lost Pictures

Mulberry Street at Prince Street

By Eamon Hickey

I'm sure this would be true for millions of photographers, but somebody who's good at information design could draw a nice diagram that plots the history of my photographic interests against the size of the camera I want to carry. When I was fascinated by wildlife, I was happy to lug 20 lbs. of gear hither and yon. I once spent several successive days making pre-dawn hikes to a gray fox den with a 7-lb. 500mm ƒ/4 lens and a ridiculous camouflage blind. I never got more than a fleeting glimpse of the furry demons, who clearly knew exactly where I was and—this could be my imagination—amused themselves with jokes about my chiropractic bills. After three or four days of this, I complained to my then-wife that shore birds were so much easier to photograph, at which she noted, "Hence the phrase is not 'smart as an egret'" without even looking up from her book.

Years later, sans sarcastic sidekick, I moved to New York City and became mostly interested in shooting the people and things I see as I make my way around the city. I've missed a lot of amazing photographs because I didn't have a camera with me. Two twenty-something furniture delivery muscle-heads, feet on the bumper of their van, hands on the pavement, doing incline push-ups in jammed mid-morning traffic on Broadway. Ten thousand skateboarders streaming, like a river made of hipster sneakers and wispy facial hair, the wrong way up 2nd Ave., protesting new regulations and freezing traffic and street life as far as the eye could see. A bushy-mustachioed man in his 60s in well-worn brown oxfords and a puffy down jacket with the hood drawn, looking for all the world like somebody's kindly grandpa, mesmerizing a 1 a.m. crowd with a spontaneous jig, danced to the wild drumming of a subway platform busker. I don't have those pictures. I got a life to lead and a job to do, and carrying an obtrusive SLR over my shoulder everywhere I go just doesn't happen.

So for me, the essential question about the E-P1 was: is it really more portable, in a meaningful way, than other high-quality, responsive digital cameras? Could I carry it easily—and forget about it when not in use—for hours, and then get the shot when I needed it?

My approach was to use it as if the answer were 'yes' and see how it worked. I used only the 17mm lens and simply slipped the camera in my coat pocket or messenger bag whenever I left my apartment. I tried to make it an integral part of my everyday life, like my cell phone.

Unsurprisingly, it's not quite as unobtrusive as a cell phone or iPod. It's not so portable that you would slip it into the inside pocket of your tuxedo on your way to the symphony or into your hip pocket while you get your nightclub boogie on. But it's unquestionably a big step closer to the carry-everywhere ideal than any seriously capable digital camera I've used before. It does go easily in and out of a coat pocket in a way that no DSLR with moderate wide lens setup does. There were many times that I would forget it was in my pocket for several hours while I ran errands. It was an unnoticeable addition to my messenger bag on my way to and from my office.

Think Coffee, Bowery Street near Houston

My dream camera would have the E-P1's sufficiency in responsiveness and controllability (or better) but would be about 15% smaller and weigh, with lens, 5–6 ounces (140–170g) less than the E-P1 with 17mm. Although I often forgot it was in my coat pocket, after several hours the E-P1's weight could begin to be a modest bother. (For reference, I'm 6'2" (188cm) tall and about 170 lbs. (77kg).) I'd actually like to see a plastic-fantastic version of this camera—without compromising responsiveness or controllability, please, Olympus! That's right, bring on the plastic, I say, if it'll shave a few ounces.

Two years ago, I bought a used Pentax *ist DS and equipped it with the really lovely little Pentax 21mm ƒ/3.2 DA Limited pancake lens. I got it because, at the time, it was the smallest package available that combined good responsiveness, good image quality, and a moderately wide-angle focal length. I don't think there's a DSLR/moderate wide lens setup that's any smaller even now. The E-P1, with the 17mm lens, is without question a lot easier to carry around. Easily coat-pocketable is a different class of thing.

And on the unobtrusiveness topic, I'll add that like many others I found that, as with a point-and-shoot digicam, using the E-P1 doesn't intrude on your subjects' consciousness as much as an SLR, or even a rangefinder, held to the eye. This is a way in which LCD viewing and so-called "arm's length" framing can be an advantage. For unobtrusive shooting I find that holding the camera at chest level or close to waist-level (my elbows are bent, so it's not really "arm's length") and viewing with the LCD draws less attention from strangers than eye-level framing, especially with a big black SLR and zoom lens. Many folks claim that holding a camera at eye-level is more stable, and they tend to state the claim as if this were something that Newton proved along with the Law of Gravity. As I understand it, Newton didn't even address the issue. If you give it some attention, I think it's easy to hold a camera steady even when away from your eye. I am, in short, glad to frame with the LCD—I think it helps me more often than not.

You'll notice I've said nothing about image quality. That's intentional. The file quality of the E-P1's images is, as I knew it would be, easily sufficient—my favorite word again—for what I'm asking it to do. Which is, more or less, to make images of street and people subjects with reasonably good tonal range and quality at ISOs up to 800 or so that I can enlarge to 20 inches (50cm) wide at the most (very rarely), and images at ISO 1600 that I can enlarge to 12–14 inches (30–35cm) wide (again, rarely). Every point-and-shoot digicam I've used is not sufficient as one gets closer to the extremes of my parameters (ISO and enlargement). I also have not commented on the 17mm lens, which seems to have already acquired a mediocre reputation. It, again, is easily sufficient for me.

Chrystie Street at Grand Street

There definitely are types of photographs that gain meaningful artistic power from increasing technical perfection, but many, many, many pictures do not, or at least not much. The things I'm interested in making pictures of fall mostly into the latter category, and I simply don't care about 1 or 2% differences in distortion or 50 line pairs of resolution this way or that. The E-P1's file quality hits a good middle ground for me.

I also haven't mentioned the Panasonic GF-1. I haven't used it. I strongly suspect that it would please me quite sufficiently, too. It evidently possesses an at least equally nice combination of portability, responsiveness, controllability, and image quality.

Ultimately, this is all boils down to the wonderful, if inexplicably obscure science of measuring happiness minutes that I mentioned in my first E-P1 post. This camera is not perfect. Unquestionably, there will be later versions, from Olympus and others, that will be better. It's not quite a carry-everywhere camera. But it gives me something I couldn't get before—namely, it will significantly extend the times and places wherein I have a high quality camera with me. Because of that, it's the first camera I've used in quite some time that I'm very sure would significantly increase my happiness minute supply.

So now I just gotta figure out when and how to get one.

Eamon

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Featured Comment by Miłosz Bolechowski: "Very 'sufficient' review. :-)"

Featured Comment by Timo: "Guess I missed Eamon by just a few minutes; said golfer was down to his last juice box."

Olympus E-P1 Comments, Part II: Nice Little Concepts

Avenue A at 11th St.

By Eamon Hickey

So as stated yesterday in Part I of these comments on the Olympus E-P1, in my opinion the camera has excellent controllability—all important exposure and focus controls are directly accessible and configurable.

What about responsiveness? It's not perfect—I'll mention some suggested improvements below—but it's sufficient. I think "sufficient" is a very helpful concept to embrace for photographers who lack trust funds. It's an equally amiable notion for photographers who lack cast-iron spines.

The E-P1's autofocus has taken a lot of flak. I would characterize it as middling, not counting follow-focusing of moving subjects, which it's not much good for. In practice, this is a relatively small issue for me, given the types of shooting for which I would use a camera like the E-P1. Even when shooting street shots of the run of everyday life, I'm usually pre-focusing or anticipating a subject's future position or waiting a few seconds, camera at ready, for an interesting moment. Some of this is a kind of anticipatory shooting and focusing, and it can often be done very unobtrusively by targeting any handy object located at the proper distance, then recomposing. The E-P1's AF system, and its manual focus system, work fine for these various methods.

One caveat to the above: unless you're using older manual focus lenses on the camera via an adapter, there's no really good way to do zone (a.k.a. scale) focusing with the E-P1. That's a disappointment. As I said, you can pre-focus the lens at any distance by picking an object at that distance and focusing. I often did just that, following my usual habit of setting the focus for about 8–10 feet (~3m) as I walk around. That seems to me like the most likely distance at which I might ever get a good raise-the-camera-and-shoot-instantly grab shot. You can also set a custom function to disable the camera's default behavior of re-focusing to infinity every time the camera is turned off or on, which is a small help. But none of this is classic zone focusing where you can set the focus distance using a scale on the lens, which you do in the split second that it takes to raise the camera to your eye or aim it from your hip according to classical decisive-moment doctrine. It should be easy for Olympus to create a feature where the current lens focus distance is displayed on the LCD, along with a depth-of-field indication or scale. This would allow easy zone focusing in the classic style and should be a no-brainer on future cameras (or in future firmware updates).

If you pre-focus or focus manually, the shutter response is similar to an entry- or mid-level DSLR on manual or pre-focus. Again, quite sufficient—and notably better than most compact digicams I've used. This does, however, bring me to my one caveat about the desirability of the electronic viewing design. Judging the moment to trip the shutter by viewing through the LCD introduces a slight additional delay to the cycle that can roughly be described as decisive moment is seen > photographer pushes button > picture happens. In my timing tests, there's a slight delay added by the LCD—about 1/10th of a second compared to viewing through the optional optical viewfinder (or simply peering at the subject over the top of the camera). You can learn to compensate, at least partially, for any delay that's consistent—and this one seems consistent—but still, all things considered, shorter shutter lags are better than longer ones. I'm hoping to see LCD/EVF delay reduced further as these technologies develop.

I had no trouble with the E-P1's supposedly deficient LCD resolution (230,000 dots). I found it easy to compose my pictures and to judge manual focus. I do wish that the manual focus assist function, which magnifies the central part of the scene either 7X or 10X to help with focus judgment, had one additional setting. As it currently works, the entire LCD area is magnified, which helps with focusing but you lose your view of the overall composition. I'd like an additional option to have only the center portion of the LCD show a magnified view, while the rest of the LCD stays at normal magnification so you can still get a decent sense of your composition.

I was not shooting on any particularly sunny days, so I can't give an opinion on how well the LCD works in direct sun, but I've shot in those conditions with many, many compact digicams, so I know that, for me, it's not a deal-breaker either way. I'll say more about the issue of "arm's length" LCD shooting in Part III of this mishmash.

Control responsiveness is also perfectly sufficient—i.e. the speed with which the two thumbwheels and all the push-buttons do their thing is just fine. No complaints in use.

Avenue A at 10th St.

I will mention two other things I'd like to see improved. The camera's power-on-to-first-shot time is a fairly long 2.7 seconds. I imagine there's dust-shaking and who knows what else going on in that time, and it would not normally be much of a concern to me, if it weren't for my second complaint: you can't leave the camera powered on when it's going in and out of your coat pocket (or holster bag or whatever). Why? Because, as many others have noted, the cameras controls are very easy to inadvertently adjust. Olympus could solve this with a sliding lock switch that disables all the buttons and wheels. As it stands—at least as far as I can tell—you have to turn the camera off when you stow it in your pocket, which means you have to endure the 2.7 second delay when you yank it out to get that fleeting shot of Elvis ducking into a taxi on West 57th Street. If anyone has a solution for this that I overlooked, I'd be grateful to hear it.

Those complaints stated, in the real world of walking around and shooting, at least for me, it would be relatively rare to miss a shot because of them. They do not, in other words, destroy the camera's sufficiency.

In the third and final installment of my E-P1 comments, tomorrow, I'll talk, in the best self-help tradition, about my happiness and the history of my unmet needs. It'll be fun, at least for me.

Eamon

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Olympus E-P1 Comments, Part I: 'Happiness Minutes'

Moonstruck Diner at 2nd Ave.

By Eamon Hickey

I stole part of the title of this post from a magazine article* that I recently read about one of the founders of "scientific management" theory, Lillian Gilbreth, who once referred to a metric that she dubbed "happiness minutes." The point of her theories and methods, she explained, was to give people more of them. It's science, you see.

Gilbreth's tragically overlooked breakthrough will guide what follows, over three posts. I'd like to accumulate some additional happiness minutes; I emerged from the factory with a reasonably sensitive built-in meter to measure them; and I was really only interested in whether the Olympus E-P1 would increase my supply. So this won't be a formal, comparative review of the E-P1. Instead, it'll be a highly subjective, entirely random rundown of things I liked, disliked, or noticed while using it.

The camera was loaned to me by the PR folks at Olympus Imaging here in the U.S. (for three weeks; it's now back home in Pennsylvania) and came with the Olympus 14–42mm ƒ/3.5–ƒ/5.6 M.Zuiko lens, the 17mm ƒ/2.8 M.Zuiko pancake lens with its companion VF-1 optical viewfinder, and the FL-14 flash. I never used, and therefore having nothing useful to say about, the 14–42mm lens or the flash, and I barely tried the viewfinder because, well, I'm not interested in shooting with those gadgets. My interest in the E-P1 is centered on, in order of importance: portability, responsiveness, controllability, and image quality. Oh, and portability. All in the service of knockabout street, travel, and informal people photography.

The portability of the E-P1 did indeed please me, but I'll talk more about that in a later post. After the portability, the next biggest thing that stood out to me is the excellent usability of a camera that combines a live histogram with responsive advanced controls. It got me to switch from manual to automatic exposure control (after 25 years), and, for me, is a modest but important step forward in quick and accurate shooting. Here's the way I set it up:

Aperture-priority exposure mode with the main command dial set to control aperture. Sub-command dial set to enable instant exposure compensation. LCD set to display a live histogram. Manual focus but with the AEL button set to activate autofocus. Finally, auto ISO with a maximum limit of ISO 800, so the camera will freely adjust the ISO between 100 and 800, according to available light levels.

Why is this cool? Because I have the speed benefits of automatic exposure control, with, obviously, direct control of the aperture, which is critical to me. The live histogram gives me a deeply informative, real-time meter check of the camera's autoexposure decision that I can intelligently interpret much faster than any in-camera reflective metering system I've ever used, from multi-pattern to spot. And with the sub-command dial set for instant exposure compensation, I can override the automatic exposure instantly and quite precisely, from shot to shot, in even the most complex lighting. Then, for focus, I have simultaneous instant access to manual or auto, whichever is best suited to the shot. And—this is crucial—the camera will not refocus every time I press the shutter release. (Separating AF activation from the shutter release is the first thing I do on any camera that I'm using.)

For me, the live histogram is the key addition. It really improves the exposure part of this circus. Compared to analyzing a spot or center-weighted meter reading, using the live histogram lets me much more quickly see (don't have to think much) whether the autoexposure decision is a good one, and instantly override it if need be. I ended up concluding that an electronic viewing camera with the right controls and a live histogram option, compared to traditional optical viewfinder designs, makes it faster and easier to reliably find and set the best exposure. (I can hear the OVF-or-die crowd denouncing my heresy as I write.)

Bowery at Grand

Using the E-P1 this way, walking around New York City slipping it in and out of a coat pocket as needed, I could shoot very quickly, yet with exacting control of exposure and focus when I needed it (one doesn't always need it). Again, good responsiveness and the right camera controls are crucial—instantly accessible aperture (or shutter speed) and autoexposure comp control, plus AF activation separated from the shutter release, are mandatory. You need everything working together, which is where most (all?) point-and-shoot digicams—some of which have live histograms—fall short.

More on the experience of using the camera, and a caveat to my endorsement of EVIL** in Part II, which will appear tomorrow morning.

Eamon

A note on the illustrations: All were post-processed to one extent or another; please don't make any judgments about out-of-camera color, tonality etc. from them.  I'm leaving out technical and shooting details, but if you want to know, just ask in the comments. I will say that the "Moonstruck Diner" shot was done at ISO 1600, and I would happily print it up to 12 or 14 inches (30–35cm) wide.

*"Not So Fast," by Jill Lepore, from The New Yorker, Oct. 12, 2009

**Meaning, of course, "electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens," not that which gives rise to wickedness, which I do not endorse.

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Olympus E-P2 Review

By Vlatko Juric-Kokic

It's generally accepted that the best camera is the one you have with you. It's hard to have a decisive moment digital if the digital is not with you. On the other hand, everybody has their own idea of what they find acceptable in such a camera. There are those satisfied with a phone cam, while others couldn't be happier that the "micro" train is accelerating. As I said earlier, I'm firmly in the second camp. I'm particularly happy that Olympus decided to produce Micro Four-Thirds cameras. I'm a long-time Olympus digital user and I don't see a pressing reason to switch. I'm used to the way their cameras work. I don't have a long period of adjusting to different menus and camera adjustments. Accordingly, I've been watching Olympus development closely in order to see what happens with its second Micro 4/3 camera, the E-P2.

Zuiko 7–14mm @ 10mm, ƒ/5.6, 1/100th sec., ISO 200

Non-destructive geekery

Before I start, a bit of messing with the files. At the moment of writing, Adobe Bridge and Photoshop CS4 (I suppose Lightroom, too) do not recognize the files from the E-P2. Try opening a photo and you'll get a message that it's not the right kind of document. Balderdash. Olympus didn't update Studio when E-P2 appeared; Studio normally opens the photos, so why would Photoshop not recognize them? The only thing Olympus apparently changed in E-P2 files was the camera identification. Instead of "E-P1," it says "E-P2"—and it was enough to stump Photoshop. But if you still want to open E-P2 photos in Photoshop before the official support, there is a way.

Open the photo in a proper text editor. Not Windows Notepad or a Mac equivalent. Something like TextPad, NoteTab or BBEdit. Possibly even the ancient vi would work. Find where it says "E-P2" at the beginning of the file and simply change the digit to "1". Do not touch anything else. Save under a different name. (Under a different name, I say.) Voilá. The file is visible and editable in Photoshop. 

 

M.Zuiko 17mm, ƒ/4.0, 1/320th sec., –0.3EV, ISO 200

Furthermore, I cannot see any difference between E-P2 and E-P1 files in image quality, color rendering or anything like that.

What the eye sees
The lack of difference stretches to the way E-P2 operates. Dials in the same places as in E-P1, the same way of operating the camera, the same focusing speed and responsiveness.... Fortunately, there are some differences (otherwise there would be absolutely no point either in the camera or in this post) which might be welcome to photographers.

One of the objections to E-P1 was the lack of a proper viewfinder. E-P2 certainly remedies that with its electronic viewfinder, the VF-2. Specification-wise, the viewfinder has the resolution of 1.44 MP, a refresh rate of 60 fps and a magnification of 1.15x. To the eye, the viewfinder is as good as the viewfinder on my E-3. While the E-3 might not have as big a viewfinder as full-frame offerings from other manufacturers, its viewfinder is nice and bright, and good for manual focusing. It's exactly the same with the VF-2: Nice, bright and good for manual focusing.

 

Contax 50mm ƒ/1.4 @ ƒ/1.4, 1/80th sec., –0.3EV, ISO 1600

I used the EP-2 at a conference, and you know how lighting is at conferences…for those who're not in the habit of attending conferences: ƒ/1.4, 1/80th sec., –0.3EV, ISO 1600. Those are the typical numbers, but it can go as low as 1/25th sec. with –0.3 EV. Absolutely no problems in focusing through the viewfinder. Yes, noise appears in the viewfinder in dim light, but the light has to be quite dim for the noise to prevent you from focusing manually. The dim light I tried, no problems.

During the day, you'll be hard pressed to notice any difference between VF-2 and an optical viewfinder. You use it the same way as you would an optical viewfinder as you have the same shooting info at the bottom of the viewfinder.

Zuiko 50–200mm @ 123mm, ƒ/4.5, 1/320th sec., –0.7EV, ISO 200

One more good point: when you press the button at the back of the viewfinder, you not only turn the screen off for shooting, you also turn the screen off for adjustments, chimping and photo viewing. The signal obviously completely switches to the viewfinder. Great thing for those who complained about the viewing scrren glowing in the dark.

On the negative side, once you plug the viewfinder into the camera, you cannot use either the port or the hot shoe to connect anything else. So if you want the viewfinder constantly on your camera, say goodbye to the flash or the external microphone. Also on the negative side—albeit only slightly—is the fact that if you keep E-P2 in a non-dedicated bag, expect the viewfinder to occasionally slide out of the hot shoe and the port due to the movement in the bag. It would be nice if Olympus came up with a way to fasten the viewfinder to the camera. For instance, like you fasten the flashes.

Zuiko 7–14mm @ 14mm, ƒ/5.6, 1/125th sec., –1.7EV, ISO 1600

One more potentially problematic thing is that the viewfinder shortens the battery life. As I was told, instead of 300+ photos that you can take with E-P1 on one charge, the E-P2 can nominally take a bit more than 200 photos with the viewfinder attached. I haven't succeeded in draining the battery, but I didn't do extensive shoots with the camera. On the other hand, I also used stabilization and reviewed photos without trying to squeeze the last electron from the battery. Nevertheless, if you plan on carrying the camera around all day, a spare battery might be a good idea. That said, I've always casually wondered why Olympus doesn't supply a battery with a bigger capacity than the 1500 mAh of the BLM-1 or 1150 mAh for the BLS-1 you find in the Pens. I've seen replacement BLS-1 batteries of 1500 and 1800 mAh. I own two replacement 2200 mAh BLM-1 batteries for the E-series and they've been working fine for the last three years. There must be a reason....

Change in focus
The Olympus E-P2 also comes with a new focusing mode, AF Tracking. Let me describe it this way...when you use Continuous AF, you select a focus point (or points) and follow your subject with the camera which keeps it in the selected point(s). When you choose AF Tracking, you select a subject and then camera follows it through all of its focus points. Do not expect results in the terrific-sports-camera kind of way, though, because fast-moving subjects will confuse the mechanism. However, if you want to photograph a moving person or recompose your photo without fiddling about changing your focus points or without fearing the subject will go out of the focusing plane, AF Tracking is quite a good thing. And I'd also say it's good for shooting video. The only problem with AF Tracking is that at greater distances it sometimes gets confused about what it should focus on. I would say it has much more to do with the sensitivity of the focusing areas than with the AF Tracking itself. Still, as a useful—even a moderately useful—new feature, it is welcome.

Finally, there are two new Art Filters in E-P2. I've been avoiding the Art Filters ever since they appeared on E-30, and I still avoid them. If I want effects, there's Photoshop. I couldn't resist trying the new Diorama filter, though. It's cute. That about sums up the positive things I can say about it. On the other hand, it's hugely slow. Enormously slow. Geologically slow. Not only you wait ages for the camera to process the photo, the filter also slows the viewfinder almost to unusability. Avoid, unless you simply have to use it.

What now?
I don't pretend to know the exact reasons why Olympus does things the way it does them. Therefore, I don't know why an electronic viewfinder didn't come with E-P1. Judging by the Photokina interview over at dpreview, there apparently were some issues between Olympus and Panasonic on the matter of the viewfinder. I don't know whether some statute of limitations expired so Olympus got a viewfinder from Panasonic or Olympus developed its own. (I think the latter would be good for Olympus.)

The LCDs on the E-P1 and E-P2 are perfectly usable; however, I'm used to viewfinders. And therefore, the E-P2 is simply a better camera for me. I would buy it. And in fact, I plan on buying it as soon as the finances allow. Unfortunately, it may be some time....

Vlatko

Disclaimer: I received a test specimen of E-P2 from Olympus Croatia before the camera was available to the general public. It's one of the good sides of being a reviewer, or possibly the good side of being a reviewer—you get toys before anybody else. I also returned the camera after I was done playing, alas.

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Editor's Note: It's rather curious—an accident of their close intro dates—but we're publishing this review of the E-P2 and its VF-2 electronic viewfinder in advance of a series of articles about the E-P1, written by Eamon Hickey, which will appear next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. However, when we get that far, you'll see why—a lot of what Eamon has to say applies equally to the E-P2 and the E-P1. —MJ

Olympus E-P1 PEN Review

By Ken Tanaka

If you’re at all attuned to camera news you are well aware of Olympus’s new PEN E-P1 camera. This 12.3 megapixel Micro Four-Thirds camera has stirred up quite a bit of excitement since its concept design was previewed at the 2008 Photokina. Olympus's own tagline has done much to ignite curiosity: "Not a compact. Not an SLR. It's a PEN."

The Pen E-P1 commemorates the 50th anniversary of Olympus's Pen series of half-frame 35mm cameras. These small, modestly-priced amateur/travel/family cameras, manufactured from 1959 to 1966, were quite popular in the period just before the single-lens reflex camera design consumed the market. Oly reportedly sold over 17 million PENs so I would imagine that they're hoping for similar success with the digital version.

Sentimentality aside, the main practical question for most people is whether or not Olympus's new PEN is a serious camera and not just a retro-styled toy. My answer is yes, the E-P1 is an earnest and versatile camera that can be fun to use. But it's also a camera with a few noteworthy shortcomings.

 

What follows are my notes after working with the E-P1 daily for over two weeks. I admit to frequently using the Leica M8 rangefinder as a comparative standard. While I recognize that most readers may not have experience with that camera, I feel that it presents a more appropriate functional and performance standard than either a compact digital camera or a DSLR.

Design, build, and finish
Although the E-P1 is quite small it's not truly a pocket camera. With its rangefinder-like body it's much smaller than a DSLR and even smaller than a Leica M rangefinder. In fact, it’s just a bit larger than a Canon Powershot G10.

When fitted with the ultra-slim 17mm pancake lens the E-P1 could be carried in a coat pocket. But with any larger lens you'll be carrying it on a strap or in a bag.

The E-P1 is relatively light at 335g plus a 40g battery. But it has a solid heft. Nothing rattles and there is no hollow-box feeling to the camera; it feels full and tight.

The World's Shortest Camera Review: The Sigma DP2

It pains me to write this. It really does. In so many ways, Sigma has made a valiant effort to create the kind of camera I first called for four years ago, and that I think is still needed in the marketplace: the DP2 is a true compact, with a fixed lens of highly utilitarian focal length and acceptable lens speed, yet with a DSLR-sized sensor. Compliments of a generous reader (thanks again, T.J.!), I had a chance to shoot with a DP2 for a few days last week.

My reaction could be confined to the two sentences in the second-to-last paragraph of this post, except that would be the world's shortest camera review.

The good news is that Sigma did two of the most important things very well: the lens in this camera is superb, and the sensor's image quality is beguiling. Despite one or two minor IQ oddities that I consider basically inconsequential, the overall look of the image files is distinctive and remarkably pleasing. These two important parameters are good enough that for some people, the results that are possible could be worth putting up with the camera. In some ways, DP2 images look better than what I get from my DSLRs.

The bad news is that the camera is slow. I mean like 2002 all over again.

The only way to get good shutter responsiveness in AF mode is to pre-focus, but as soon as the action around you fires up to more than leisurely-stroll-level, pre-focusing seems to take forever. It takes so long that you can't even pre-focus directly on moderately fast moving subjects, because the subject moves before the camera can lock on to it! As for throughput...well, when a camera uses an hourglass symbol to indicate progress writing a single picture to the card and you find yourself not infrequently watching that hourglass symbol as you wait to take the next shot....

The DP2 is a camera that would virtually force you to work out a method that it's capable of and that's acceptable to you in order for you to use it, virtually to the point that it would dictate the kind of subject matter you could use it for. At least comfortably. If you shoot almost exclusively static subjects at middle distances or greater, it could work. Sean Reid describes using it with a clip-on optical viewfinder for medium-distance subjects outdoors, guesstimating focus distance with the handy manual-focusing wheel. (In my past experience, this works reasonably well at middle apertures for subjects farther away from us than we are tall, roughly—with practice. For closer subjects, like maybe four or five feet on in, you often need more exact focus, so you'd either need to be really good at the aforementioned guesstimation or switch to AF.) You'll also be better off shooting JPEG, so the camera has a chance to keep up with you. Shooting raw with the DP2 is like walking holding hands with a three-year-old: it's just gonna slow you down.

For me, the camera's egregious lack of responsiveness makes it a non-starter. Workarounds are all well and good, but I would just prefer to have a camera that works better.

I wanted to like the Sigma DP2. I really did. But it's like a tripod with two legs: what's missing overwhelms what's done well. I have to call a personal verdict of "not recommended."

Mike
(Thanks to Ted Johnson)

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UPDATE: I just found out the camera I used last week did not have the latest firmware, which is said to improve AF speed. So add a grain of salt—or another one, if you disagree with what I said—to my comments about that.  —Mike

Featured Comment by Colin Work: "The problem with workarounds with the DP2 (and many other cameras) is that they were not designed to support this.

"Old film cameras were designed for manual focus and a pleasure to use in this way as well as being quick.

"When technology works well, great, but when it doesn't, trying to work around it is generally worse than not having the technology at all—try retuning a modern TV when you've lost the remote!

"For me, the best cameras (old and new) are those which reduce the need to take the camera into consideration when shooting. An old manual film camera achieves an almost perfect level of 'transparency'—it works pretty much exactly as fast as you can think and react.

"Very few DSLRs in my experience can match this...my 1D3 comes close, but even then I occasionally have to make a focus point change when it 'mis-locks.'

"From what I read, the DP2 has nothing like the level of transparency I would want. Yes, IQ is very important—but of no value whatsoever if the critical moment is missed.

"I think we will wait a long time for the perfect DMD—not because it can't be made, but because the manufacturers will not risk bringing a stripped down, feature-limited camera to market. We may get a usable DMD, but only by using a sub-section of an otherwise highly spec'd (and priced) camera."

Sigma DP2 Review

By Ken Tanaka

Few cameras have faced the great expectations that Sigma’s DP1, and now the DP2, compact cameras have faced. Sigma’s own marketing tag line certainly fuels these expectations: "A Full-Spec Compact Digital Camera With All The Power of DSLR." I never touched a DP1, turned away by widespread stories of poor usability. But I was eager to take a look at its successor, the DP2.

What follows are my impressions of the Sigma DP2. Note that my evaluation of the DP2 took place within the context of my existing compact cameras; a Canon Powershot G10 and a Leica D-Lux 4 (a chichi version of the the Panasonic DMC-LX3), hence the references to these other cameras.

In brief
True to Sigma’s marketing claims the DP2 is capable of producing a high-quality low-to-moderate-ISO image file very comparable to that of a DSLR with an APS-C sensor. Indeed the DP2’s images can often best those of other cameras in the DP2’s size/price class. I must qualify this claim, however, by noting that obtaining optimal image quality from the DP2 is not always a predictable proposition.

What I found most surprising and disappointing was the DP2’s flimsy build and feel. The camera does not feel at all like a $650 camera marketed in 2009. (Sigma’s list price on the DP2 is actually a whopping $870.) It feels like a somewhat cheaply produced product below the industrial design standards of today’s higher-end compact cameras.   

Image quality
The Sigma DP2’s primary marketing claim is anchored in the performance of its 20.7mm x 13.8mm Foveon X3 sensor. (That sensor is approximately 6 to 7 times larger than the sensors in the Canon G10 and the Leica D-Lux 4.) Indeed, as some of the out-of-the-camera samples shown here suggest, the DP2 can do a nice job in this department. Images tend to be very crisp, extraordinarily noiseless at ISOs up to 800, and rich with detail.

The most significant DP2 image issues I encountered related to color casts and vignettes. The Foveon sensor seems to have a strong green bias. Raw images captured with auto white balance and the camera’s "standard" color profile are generally very cool and often show a slightly green overcast. They are also somewhat flat and undersaturated, contrary to the over-saturated Velvia-style samples that Sigma presents in its promotional brochure and website. While this is a relatively easily correctable characteristic, the DP2's tendency to also render greenish vignettes, or edge tints, is not so simple to correct. (See the Picasso sculpture image below for an example.) This quirk is rather unpredictable, although it seems more frequent at wider apertures.

Note the slight greenish cast in the far corners.

As a side note, I was struck by how similar these DP2’s image quirks can be to those of the Leica M8 rangefinder, which can often produce cyan edge tints on images captured with uncoded wide-angle lenses.

Build
Having been a long-time Canon G7, G9, and now G10 user, I have come to expect a very solid build in my compact cameras. Those cameras feel as if they’ve been hewn from solid blocks of aluminum. Even my Leica D-Lux 4 feels quite substantial. So I was surprised and disappointed with the DP2’s tinny, hollow build quality. I fully expect that a 3-foot fall to the pavement would instantly disintegrate a DP2 into a parts list. The DP2 just does not feel like a substantial camera.

Lens and focusing
The DP2’s 41mm single-focal length lens is the camera’s true star. Its sharpness, contrast, and nearly non-existent distortion are very reminiscent of some M-mount rangefinder lenses. The DP2’s terrific lens performance is one Sigma marketing claim that I can wholeheartedly confirm.

Unfortunately the DP2’s auto-focus performance is quite slow and weak. I would have expected the DP2’s fixed-focal length lens to be snappy in this department. But it can spend seconds hunting, even in well-lit scenes, and often completely wanders away in dimmer scenes. The DP2‘s manual focusing system is actually pretty good due mainly to a dedicated focus wheel. It would be much better, however, if the camera’s LCD screen was up to current-day specs.

It’s also worth noting, and warning prospective owners about, that the DP2’s focusing mechanism is loud...actually, very loud. The camera croaks, wheezes, and groans as the lens is focused either automatically or manually. I was startled by this noise when I shot the first frame. Who would expect this little camera to be as obtrusive as a growling stomach in quiet settings?

LCD screen
The past one or two generations of cameras have featured some gorgeous, large, high-resolution LCD screens. The Leica D-Lux 4 and Canon G10 both feature 3-inch 460K screens. But the DP2’s screen is only a 2.5" 230K LCD. It’s almost impossible to become comfortable with such a small, coarse screen after using one of these other cameras. Making this worse, however, is the fact that the DP2’s screen evidently has little in the way of optical coatings to improve visibility in bright conditions.

Menus
The DP2's menu features 21 settings provided in an old-style single list (but thankfully with circular navigation). The combination of button presses required to navigate and manipulate these settings takes some time to learn; it’s not exactly intuitive. The camera does feature a dedicated button for quickly changing frequently needed settings such as ISO. A completely separate "Setup" menu, which includes the memory card formatting function, is accessed somewhat oddly via the exposure program control dial.

Lock-ups and black-outs
Just 33 frames into the camera’s life it completely froze after recording an image to a 4Gb Sandisk Extreme III memory card. The status data remained displayed on the screen but the image was black and the camera would not respond to any button presses. Only removal of the battery cured this electronic catatonia. These seizures became so common that after the seventh occurrence, at around 245 frames, I stopped counting them.

At around the 200th frame, however, the DP2 developed a new malady. As with lock-ups, the status data remained on screen but the image went black. Unlike the full lock-ups, however, the camera remained responsive to button presses. The camera is clearly unusable in such a state, but cycling the power brought it back to normal.

Battery life
Sigma claims that the average battery life for the DP2 is 250 shots. My own experience, in very moderate temperature conditions, is closer to 150–175.

Software
At this writing the Sigma Photo Pro software provided with the camera is the only tool available for processing the DP2’s raw image files. To my surprise this software is really not bad at all. The Mac version was pretty snappy with a reasonably full complement of tonality adjustments. Sigma Photo Pro made working with the DP2’s X3F files relatively painless.

(N.b.: By the time you read this, Adobe will have issued a pre-release of the Camera Raw 5.4, which features support for the Sigma DP2.)

Closing thoughts
When Sigma finally introduced the long-awaited DP1 in 2008, many people rightly saluted the company for innovation. Innovations, however, must ultimately be integrated into products that represent genuine practical advancement. This is where I feel Sigma has failed thus far. The DP2 is simply not a competitive product with today’s other premium-priced compact digital cameras. I did not see any conspicuous persistent advantages from the Foveon sensor that would come close to counterbalancing the camera’s practical shortcomings. Frankly, I was not as impressed with the DP2’s Foveon technology as I was with its lens and the fact that it has such a relatively large sensor in such a small camera.

After using the DP2 daily for over a week I found it to be a sluggish, noisy, unreliable, and generally charmless device which I ultimately decided to return for a refund. That’s the bottom line of my opinion.

Given the recent advancements of the Micro Four-Thirds sensor format I expect several new compact cameras sporting these larger-than-standard-point-and-shoot sensors from Olympus and Panasonic in the near future. It will be a shame if Sigma is unable to leverage its investment in the Foveon X3 (which it now owns) in time to gain leadership in compact cameras. To do so, however, it will need to build better cameras around its sensors and lenses.

Ken

Sustain The Online Photographer

Featured Comment by Chris: "Being a happy owner of a DP2, I would agree with many of the points made here—the menus are a bit clunky, the focusing is noisy and slow, there is some weird WB out of camera. But after a few tweaks in Sigma Photo Pro the images simply sing. The amount of detail, quality of color and dynamic range are far more robust and professional than files generated by my Nikon D40. These qualities also translate well to black-and-white conversions. I love the minimalist, old-school, controls and simplicity and plan on getting the slightly over-priced viewfinder. But, the big thing for me is the fast ƒ/2.8 lens. Being able to shoot with a shallow depth of field with a compact digital is what I've been waiting for and is a big part of my photographic style."

Featured Comment by Andrew: "Sad but true. I bought one only because I had been anticipating it for so long, and I loved yet hated my DP1. Too late to return it. So much potential squandered."

Featured Comment by mcananeya: "How's this for a quirk of timing? Sigma just released a firmware update (http://www.sigma-dp.com/DP2/firmware.html) that supposedly improves autofocus performance and eliminates the camera lock-ups Ken described above. That obviously wouldn't change the noise and build-quality issues, but it's still unfortunate that Ken didn't get a chance to test a camera with the new firmware.

"I suppose that's the price you pay for being one of the first to review a camera...."

Featured Comment by Thomas Risberg: "That was a pretty poor review in my opinion. Not that I disagree with what you write, you seem to have uncovered some usability problems that exists for the DP1 as well. Nothing new here. You should however have tried a little harder to make use of the defining features of the camera which in my opinion are the sensor and a high quality lens on a pocket sized body. Looking around the web it doesn’t take long to find some excellent pictures taken with both the DP1 and DP2, so for you not even trying to produce some magic with this camera is disappointing and I expected a lot more from a review on TOP."

Featured Comment by Edward Taylor: "After my TOP review of the Sigma DP1, I used the camera for another few months. During that time I found that it did not give me reliable results. I occasionally got remarkable, "better than expected" images, but usually got images that could not measure up to my G9 or G10. Not to mention, the camera was so clunky to use. As a result, I missed so many shots that I stopped using it.

"Also, though I am not impressed with megapixel counts, I began to get annoyed with the claim that the camera was almost 15 megapixels. At times the resolution seemed limited to the 4–5 megapixels that it actually had. Under ideal conditions, the camera seemed to excel beyond its specs, but when do we ever have ideal conditions?

"Anyway, I was optimistic that Sigma would fix all these bugs with the DP2. They didn't. I had the camera for a brief time and returned it just as Ken did.

"My advice for a pocketable camera—go with the Canon G-10 or the Panasonic LX3 until Micro 4/3rds is a reality. Then re-evaluate the situation.

"Thanks Ken for an informative real-world review."