Olympus E-P2 Compact System Camera (14-42mm lens & VF-2 electronic viewfinder) Black

Product Information

Behind a door on the right side of the E-P2 you’ll find what appear to be the same combined USB / TV output and mini HDMI port as the E-P1, but like many newer cameras the HDMI port has been upgraded here to support Consumer Electronics Control, or CEC for short. CEC allows the E-P2 to be controlled over HDMI by a compatible TV set, so you could use the TV’s remote to browse images and start slideshows. Removing the mirror box from the design also means that there is no longer any requirement to make wide angle lenses retro focus designs. The rear element of the lens can be almost touching the sensor if necessary and this frees the designer to make lenses more easily so quality can in theory be improved and size reduced. The same applies when comparing Leica rangefinder lenses to any typical modern DSLR lens. The rangefinder lenses are much smaller. The flash has a quoted guide number of 10 at 200 ISO. Dividing that by the E-PL2 14-42mm kit lens’ maximum aperture of f3.5 gives a maximum flash distance of 2.82 metres. That may not seem like a hugely powerful flash, and it isn’t, but it is comparable with many recent compacts (manufacturers of which are fond of quoting maximum flash distances at higher ISO settings). It’s fine for reasonably close subjects and, of course, the E-PL2 has a hot shoe which means you can mount an external flash, or use the built-in one to remote trigger models such as the Olympus FL36R The other major change made to the E-P2 also improves the camera significantly. The addition of an accessory port isn't usually the sort of thing that excites us but, when it allows the use of such a good electronic viewfinder, it does make quite a big difference. Most obviously it offers a steadier way of holding the camera and a way to use the camera in really bright light, where the E-P2's rear screen can be hard to see. In addition, though, the clip-on nature of the EVF means that you only have to carry it when you think you'll use it and users who don't think they will are likely to have the option to not have to pay for it.

On the one hand we have a small and rather fiddly camera that needs some considerable care in operation. On the other hand we have a very compact unit that can deliver the very highest quality of results, and this must in the end be what counts. For travel this has to be a very serious contender, offering as it does the prospect of lightening the load to be carried and reducing its bulk as well. There are alternatives as this market expands, but it may well be down to handling and the various options need to be handled to see what suits best. This camera is definitely worth its price and could be the basis of a very effective compact kit. Olympus traditionalists will I think be very pleased with the retro look, new users will be very pleased with the high quality results. Because of the way viewfinders are measured (using a fixed lens, rather than a lens of equivalent magnification), you also need to take the sensor size into account, so the numbers in the diagram below are the manufacturer's specified magnifications divided by the respective 'crop factors'. As you can see, the VF-2's 1.15x magnification (0.58x once crop factor is taken into account), makes it bigger than most APS-C cameras and equal to largest optical viewfinder that Olympus makes - that of the high-end E-3 DSLR.The E-P2’s accessory port also allows you to mount the (S)EMA-1 adapter which lets you connect an external microphone for far superior audio quality during movies. The Manual exposure mode and option to connect an external microphone – albeit with an additional accessory – are both decent upgrades to the movie capabilities of the E-P2, and could swing the decision from the E-P1 for serious film makers. The Olympus E-P2 features a new Picture Mode called i-Enhance. This analyses the image and selectively boosts the contrast and saturation in certain areas in an attempt to mimic your often enhanced memories of the subject. Olympus cites the example of a sunset which you may recall looking much more vibrant than captured in your photos. The base ISO setting has been increased from the E-PL1’s 100 ISO to 200 ISO and the top sensitivity setting has increased to 6400 ISO from the E-PL1’s maximum 3200 ISO. The shutter speed range has also been extended and now runs from 60 seconds to 1/4000. The E-PL2 has the same 12.3 Megapixel sensor as the E-PL1, but a larger and more detailed 460k / 3 inch LCD screen. And where the E-PL1 was button-only operation, the E-PL2 gets a rear panel control dial. Other hardware changes include a new battery design and compatibility with the USB remote shutter release as well as the expanding range of accessories designed to fit the accessory port behind and below the hotshoe. Possibly in response to criticisms of the E-PL1’s poor dynamic range at 100 ISO, the sensitivity on the E-PL2 starts at 200 ISO and extends to 6400 ISO. The range of ART filters has been updated and they can now also be customised. Of the Sony NEX-3/5, the Lumix GF2 and the E-PL2, the latter’s screen is the least contrasty and most difficult to see in bright conditions, so the VF-2 could be a must-have accessory. As well as allowing eye-level composition, the VF-2 rotates upwards to 90 degrees so you can look down into the viewfinder – useful for composing low-level shots, but you still need to have your eye to the viewfinder unlike the flip-out screen of the Sony NEX3/5 with which you can comfortably shoot from the waist.

The E-P2 was replaced in Olympus' PEN line by the Olympus PEN E-P3 which was announced in June 2011. All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 12.3 megapixel Super Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 7Mb. So the VF-2 is very nice, but how often would you actually use it? We were initially sceptical about how often we’d switch to it, not to mention concerned over the extra size it added to the top of the camera, but in use we ended up composing roughly half our shots with it. The VF-2 really came into its own when bright sunlight made the screen harder to view, or at times when we wanted a more detailed look at the subject – the fine detail also makes manual focusing much easier. Good exposure and white balance on this interior hand-held panning shot, but the overall quality of E-PL2 video fails to match the high standard of its stills.

Conclusion

That the E-PL2 has a built-in flash is taken by many a sign that this is a ‘step up’ camera – aimed at high-end compact owners looking to move up a notch in terms of control and versatility. Neither of the two cameras that sit above the E-PL2 in the PEN range has a built in flash and nor does Sony’s NEX-5/3, but the Lumix GF2 does. The size of human hands is a limiting factor in the design of many products, and in the case of digital cameras its necessary to strike a balance between small size, the ergonomics of the devices controls, and practical issues such as screen and control size and positioning. The E-P2 gets it pretty much right, offers a good compromise by being large enough to hold comfortably yet not so small as to make control use problematic. Like the E-PL1, the Live Control menu allows you to shoot video in Program, Aperture Priority or fully manual modes or with any of the six Art Filters. As on other PEN models, though, shooting movies with the more intensive Art Filters will greatly reduce the frame rate with jerky results. You'll also want to play with the new Art Filters Cross Process and Diorama if buying this camera, the latter for us producing the most striking results with a little experimentation. Generally the digital effects that worked the best were pop art, pinhole, diorama and grainy film; the others we rarely used. You can see an example of shooting in Manual mode in the lower of our two video clips to the left – it shows the E-P2 manually focusing from one subject to another with a shallow depth-of-field using the 17mm pancake lens at f2.8.