Olympus E-PM1 - digital camera review: Olympus E-PM1 - digital camera

Photo gallery:
Olympus PEN E-PM1

Size and affordability remain the bane of the interchangeable-lens camera (at least here in the U.S.), but Olympus' PEN E-PM1 hits the closest to the target that I've seen thus far. It's not perfect, and in fact it's kind of hard to get excited about. But there's a lot to like if you want to upgrade to the speed and photo quality of an ILC but don't have a lot of cash to spend. Plus it comes in a handful of pretty colors.

7.2

Olympus E-PM1 - digital camera

$228 at Amazon

The Good

The <b>Olympus PEN E-PM1</b> has a relatively compact and appealing design, and operates similarly enough to a point-and-shoot that upgraders needn't be intimidated. Plus it's priced aggressively.

The Bad

If you're picky, the image and video quality may not completely satisfy you.

The Bottom Line

If you're looking for a step-up model that's still pretty compact, the Olympus PEN E-PM1 is a solid, affordable choice.

The camera's photo quality rates as good-to-very good, but I think most of my issues with it stem from the kit lens. It's the same lens that ships with all Olympus' PEN models, but for some reason it irked me more this time around.

Of course, that helped drive home the attraction of using an ILC instead of a point-and-shoot; when I couldn't get any landscape shots out of the 14-42mm lens that didn't look muddy, I switched to a Lensbaby.

Close-ups look pretty sharp and snappy, but detail at a distance generally looks oddly oversharpened or overcompressed when viewed at actual size. It seems independent of ISO sensitivity, and the camera can handle up to ISO 800 pretty well, depending upon image content. Shooting raw helps, but not as dramatically as it does in other cameras. I have no complaints about the color or exposure, though; it handles those very well.

Video quality is adequate. Unfortunately, you have to turn off image stabilization in order to prevent serious rolling shutter (wobble) artifacts, which seems to be a fact of life for video on all sensor-shift-based IS systems.

Plus it's interlaced, which exacerbates the normal video-compression artifacts; in busy scenes you can see a lot of blockiness when viewed at full size. Still, for the occasional vacation video clips it'll do.

Olympus PEN E-PM1 photo samples

Unsurprisingly given the similarity of their innards, the E-PM1 performs about the same as the E-PL3, solid but not stellar. While the camera is pretty fast overall and keeps up with the competition, it's slow on startup, with a big (and unusual) ka-thunk of the shutter: it takes 1.5 seconds to power on and shoot. It matches the rest of the crowd--except the significantly more expensive Nikon 1 J1--with 0.3 second shot lag in good light and 0.6 second in dim.

When CNET Labs compared the E-PM1 with similar cameras, none could keep up with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 on shot-to-shot speeds, though the E-PM1's 0.8 second time is quite respectable.

But at 2.2 seconds, the flash takes a relatively long time to recycle. It's very zippy for its class at continuous shooting, but without a viewfinder I find burst shooting awkward. Still, for the occasional action emergency, kids, and pets it should fare well.

The E-PM1 has a solid build, with an attractive body that consciously looks like a point-and-shoot. My only real problem with its design is the lack of a grip on the front; its brushed metal chassis feels especially slippery as well. It also has a very point-and-shoot-like set of physical controls which should make it feel familiar to use for upgraders. These include a dial on the back with integrated buttons that control exposure compensation, focus area, flash and burst mode. There's also a thumb-operated movie record button. You adjust frequently-needed settings via the typical scrolling options around the edges of the display. In auto mode it uses Olympus' simplified slider-based scheme for adjustments.

Olympus bundles a small flip-down flash with the camera like the NEX-C3 rather than a built-in one like the GF3, and its connector supports an add-on viewfinder, microphone and other PEN accessories.

As the least expensive of the current crop of compact ILCs, I wouldn't expect the E-PM1 to have a huge feature set, but it offers more than just the basics. As I've said previously, I really like Olympus' Art Filters, which are more flexible and render better results than most other implementations. It also supports up to seven frames for bracketing (and you can bracket the Art Filters). If you're into panoramas, though, I wouldn't recommend this; the E-PM1 has a clunky, old-fashioned interface for panoramas that isn't as easy to use as other cameras'.

Conclusion
The Olympus PEN E-PM1 is priced right for an entry-level interchangeable-lens model and it's a solid, if somewhat unassuming, model. I just found myself missing features like a touch screen and tilting LCD, and the photo quality is a bit too inconsistent for my taste. That said, it's better than a point-and-shoot, and if you're looking for a step-up model that's still pretty compact, this is a good, affordable alternative.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Nikon 1 J1

1

1.3

1.1

0.4

0.2

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3

0.6

0.6

0.6

0.6

0.3

Olympus PEN E-PL3

1

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.3

1.5

0.8

0.8

0.6

0.3

Sony Alpha NEX-C3

0.7

0.8

0.8

0.8

0.4