Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Oly finally arrives in the m43 market

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0906/09061 ... pusep1.asp

Tiny body (121x60x36mm), well built, essentially pocketable with the 17mm f2.8 pancake. 12MP, 3fps, 10 RAW buffer, 720p video, ISO 100-6400.

Samples are showing serious improvements in high ISO performance, possibly over a stop advantage over the E-30 and E-620 at 3200+. 6400 arrives for the first time in a 4/3rds sensor.

Looks like a killer little camera. Only two real weak points, the 230k LCD and the fairly pedestrian AF performance (apparently it's a bit faster than the E-620 in Contrast-Detect mode, significantly slower than the G1).

Me wants.

I'll prolly get this 'un.

wow, it looks really neat, I want one

No View finder -- this is the real deal breaker for me. 230K LCD for this "premium" camera is definitely a low point.

I think I will hang on to my G1.

That reminds me, I still need to pickup that Nikon adapter off you. Will you be around on Friday?

I am always around, Adam! Best time is after work, but I can make myself available around noon.

I was waiting for this and GH1 to see and I think I'll settle with G1 as well.

loved the blender add for ep1, I hope they keep on renovating and make it worth my while to get another micro 4/3 in the future.

After work is good for me on friday, I have to hang around downtown anyways.

hmm ... sounds similar to the D90. Good for oly to come out with something to compete.

Except that it's built like a rangefinder.

Nice that it has sensor-based IS. But I'd still prefer a real digital rangefinder (that doesn't cost $6,000). Still tempting... would be a fun street shooter, and I could just zone focus with the M-mount lenses...

It's nothing like the D90. The E-30 and E-620 are similar to a D90 (aside from the lack of video). The E-P1 is significantly smaller than a D40 and is purely live-view based. It's really a interchangeable lens P&S with a real sensor in it.

In part one, in trying to create the Olympus Micro FourThirds camera a mad scientist tried to combine an Oly SLR camera with an Oly P&S camera in a blender, and it blew up in his face (literally):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcdoa0XCFo

In part II he tries again with a slightly different recipe with better results:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FWv21EgRZU

I saw it at the downtown Henry's.

Its a big point and shoot.

I felt like an idiot when i picked it up and put it up to my eye as if it had a viewfinder.

It needs a viewfinder. Definitely.

Someone put together a mock-up of what it probably should have been. No idea who, but it got posted to DPReview.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=32167142

If the E-P1 had been designed like the unit on the left, then it might have made me force open my wallet.

If it had been like that AND Oly didn't cheap out on the EVF the same way that they did on the rear LCD (the G1 gets a much better 460k version) I'd have been seriously interested. The E-P1's updated processing engine, in-body IS and marginally lighter AA filter are all notable advantages for a low-light alt lens shooter like myself.

As it is, the 17's on my list, the E-P1 isn't

It would also have been a good candid shooter for someone like me, who is generally already burdened with a couple of big zooms when I'm shooting.

Some people actually thought it was the real E-P2, but I broke their hearts when I told them to look at the height difference between the "hump" and the mode dial of the two sides of the E-P2.

The biggest things though isn't the size of the VF and flash, but the space required for the support hardware, especially the capacitor for the flash...p&s cameras manage this due to the fact they don't have such a large sensor.

Note that if you compare the G1 and E-P1, the practical size differences come down to the EVF/Flash, flip-out LCD and the grip. Volume-wise its probably a wash as the extra volume from the grip is pretty well offset by the significantly larger battery of the G1. Olympus probably could have included the capacitor for a flash if they'd had somewhere to stick the flash itself.

I could do without the built-in flash, especially in the pictured location. Mount a lens bigger than the 17mm and you'd have visible shadow, due to the lens being in the sight line of the flash. The viewfinder is a must for me though. I can't find a good pocket compact anymore because none of them seem to have a viewfinder.

The hotshoe is also useles for a mounted OVF. Nice model but not THAT nice. they can do way better.

How is that? Cameras have used accessory shoe (the name for the shoe before it became known as a "hot" shoe) for years...it's certainly not a new idea.

I came across a unique finder lately that you don't see the subject through, but instead there's an opaque outline...the rest of the finder is black; the idea is you use both eyes with it, the one eye looks through the finder and the other looks at the subject...your brain puts together the two views and you end up with a frame around your subject.

How is that? It's centred which is really the only requirement for using an OVF (and that's not even a major requirement, just makes use easier).

Sorry about the confusion, I thought I quoted the previous post!

I was refering to the E-P2 mock up Rob linked to here: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=32167142
The shoe mount is off to the side, where an OVF would be off-centre.
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It is more important for longer lenses than wides; my canon M turret was designed to mimick the FOV of lenses up to 135mm, and the shoe-to-finder angle was angled toward the bottom to match the lens view below -it was more or less set to infinity and the difference was obvious when you focused closer, but the lateral angle was zero; the finder was expected to be on top of the lens. So were my CV finders.

Talking about finders, I wonder whether the one that will come with my 17mm will have exact FOV or framelines...I hope the latter

Ah, that makes sense now. Definitely a weakness of that design.

I believe someone photoshopped that E-P2 "mock up"

In that design a OVF would be superfluous, as it has a EVF.

Four-Thirds.org has updated their matching site which allows you to see what various lenses look like on various bodies:
http://www.four-thirds.org/en/products/ ... index.html

You HAVE to see what the Sigma 300-800mm looks like attached to the E-P1!