Olympus E-PL1 Optics

Olympus E-PL1 Optics

Olympus M.ZUIKO Lenses

The Olympus E-PL1 is compatible with any Micro Four Thirds lens, with Olympus and Panasonic together having shipped a total of eight lens models at the time of writing (April 2010). Three further Micro Four Thirds have been announced, but have not yet reached the market. Olympus has dubbed their Micro Four Thirds lenses "M.ZUIKO," and only two M.ZUIKO lenses have been released. The Olympus 17mm f/2.8 M.ZUIKO Digital is a sharp, fairly fast (f/2.8), and compact prime lens with an equivalent focal length of 34mm. Also offered is the Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ED M.ZUIKO Digital zoom lens offers a fairly typical 3x zoom ratio, with a 35mm equivalent focal range of 28-82mm. Two Olympus E-PL1 kits are available, either body-only for US$549, or with the 14-42mm lens  for US$599. The kit version of the 14-42mm lens is not identical to the retail version, featuring a polycarbonate lens mount rather than the original metal, for a slight saving in cost and weight.

One interesting feature of the 14-42mm lens is that it "collapses" for a smaller footprint when not in use. Shown unmounted to the right of the E-PL1 above, it's in its collapsed position in this photograph. The  design does seem to be somewhat of a compromise, however. In our review of the Olympus P1 we discovered some issues with vertical blurring in images shot with this lens at shutter speeds of between around 1/100 and 1/200 second. The problem is caused by vibrations induced from the shutter mechanism, and is still apparent when the 14-42mm lens is used in concert with the PL1. For that reason, discriminating users planning to make prints above 8 x 10 inches may want to avoid this lens, or bear the problem in mind when selecting shutter speeds.

Olympus has two further lenses in the pipeline, both announced alongside the previous E-P2 camera. Due sometime in the first half of 2010, these are the Olympus M. ZUIKO Digital ED 9-18mm f4.0-5.6 (super wide angle zoom, 18-36mm equivalent), and the Olympus M. ZUIKO Digital ED 14-150mm f4.0-5.6 (high-power wide to telephoto zoom, 28-300mm equivalent). Further options are available from Panasonic, Olympus' partner in the Micro Four Thirds format, which currently offers six Micro Four Thirds-mount lenses - two primes, and four zooms. One third party -- a new startup company called Noktor -- has also announced a completely manual, Micro Four Thirds compatible 50mm F0.95 prime lens which seems to be based on a design intended for CCTV security cameras.

In addition, no less than nine different adapters make it possible to mount a wide selection of current and historic glass on a Micro Four Thirds camera. Lenses that can be adapted include certain standard Four Thirds, Olympus OM, Leica M / R, Voigtlander VM / Ai-S / PK-A/R / KA, and Carl Zeiss ZM / ZF / ZK types. These adapters generally have some limitations as to compatibility and available features, which will depend on the specific model being used.

Because the E-PL1 features in-body image stabilization, Olympus' M.ZUIKO lenses do not themselves incorporate optical image stabilization. Some Panasonic Micro Four Thirds lenses offer image stabilization and work with the Olympus E-PL1, but note that you have to disable one or the other image stabilization system.

Olympus E-PL1 Autofocus

The Olympus E-PL1 has an 11-area contrast-detect autofocus system, using the main imaging-sensor to determine focus, similar to how most Point & Shoot cameras work. There are two AF Area options: "All Target" mode, where the camera automatically selects the active area(s) for you, or "Single Target" mode, where you specify the active area by selecting it with the 4-way controller.

You can register a "Home" position for the active AF by through the Set Home option in Custom menu tab A. The function button can then be configured to toggle back and forth between the current AF position and your Home position, useful for quickly retrieving your favorite AF area position. For the first time in a Pen-series camera, there's an option to adjust the size of the autofocus point, an important feature if you're wanting to focus on a smaller subject, such as the small AF target in our Indoor Portrait series. First you have to zoom in with the zoom buttons, then hit the Info button to select the desired zoom level with the up and down arrows. From there, pressing the Zoom-in button toggles the small AF area on, then switches between zoom and regular views. It's a little complicated, but it's very good to have a fine autofocus mode.

In addition, the E-PL1 offers a Face Detection function, capable of simultaneously locating up to eight individual faces. Each face the camera finds is indicated on the display or electronic viewfinder with a white frame, and is then taken into account when focusing and metering. There's no advance indication of which individual face the camera will focus on, nor any way to manually select which face to prioritize. The face that was selected for AF operation is only momentarily indicated with a green frame, once AF lock has already been achieved. On the plus side, you're not limited to the PL1's 11 autofocus points - the camera will lock focus on a face anywhere within the frame.

Of course, the Olympus E-PL1 also offers a manual focus mode. In MF mode, an option called MF assist causes the camera to optionally magnify the preview image by 7x, 10x, or 14x whenever the focus ring is adjusted, to help determine critical focus. Like the P2 before it, the MF assist preview is now centered around the user-selected focus point, helpful when trying to manually focus on an off-center subject. For use with old manual-focus lenses (which lack the communication that would tell the body when the focus ring was being adjusted), or perhaps to simply check the focus that the AF system has achieved, you can also enable the magnifiied mode manually by using the Zoom (Magnifying Glass) button to select the Zoom display screen mode (with the green AF square in the middle); then the Arrow pad to move freely around the entire image frame, and the Info button to select the magnification amount. A second press of the Zoom button will enable the programmed zoom level, and the Arrow pad will still pan around the magnified image. (The magnified area can also be moved around in other display modes while manually focusing, but after a brief pause without focus operation will reset to the active AF point location, making it rather less useful than in the Zoom display mode.)

As we note elsewhere, the LCD on the E-PL1 isn't one of the newer-generation high-resolution designs, as it has only 230K dots. It's also smaller than average, with a 2.7" diagonal. For precise manual focusing, the optional higher-resolution articulating electronic viewfinder proves a better choice, thanks to its high resolution of 1,440K dots (800 x 600 pixels x three dots per color). That said, we found that we could still produce sharp images when focusing manually using the LCD, at least under ideal conditions. Ideal conditions mean the camera mounted on a solid tripod, and a subject with strongly contrasting fine detail to examine while focusing. Under such conditions, we could consistently produce results as sharp as those delivered by the AF system, but we always felt like we were guessing somewhat as to where optimum focus really was. The excellent EVF certainly mitigates our issues with manual focusing on the PL1, but does rely on your buying it, and then bringing it everywhere you go, so we'd still be happier if the E-PL1's LCD screen was larger and had more resolution.

Autofocus servo modes consist of S-AF (single shot autofocus), C-AF (continuous autofocus), MF (manual focus), S-AF+MF (single shot autofocus with manual focus tweaking), and C-AF+TR (continuous autofocus with tracking). By default in S-AF or S-AF+MF modes, focus is locked when the shutter button is half-pressed, although this behaviour can be changed through the Custom menu. When AF tracking is enabled, the E-PL1 can follow the subject as it moves around the field of view, tracking it anywhere within the image frame to keep it in focus.

In both C-AF modes, the camera continuously cycles its AF system, which helps it track moving objects, keeping the current lens focal distance setting closer to the current subject distance than it might otherwise be. This can reduce AF "hunting" when it comes time to snap the actual shot. Because contrast-detect AF systems have to perturb the focus in order to tell whether the image is actually in focus or not, the E-PL1's Continuous-AF mode disturbs the viewfinder display on the LCD while it's operating. That is, the viewfinder image continuously shifts in and out of focus when C-AF is active, as the camera constantly re-checks its focus setting. This is a necessity for any contrast-detect AF system, but the amount of defocusing required by the E-PL1 to check focus is greater than we've seen in some other systems.

AF in Movie mode

In Movie mode, you have the same focusing options available as when shooting stills, with the exception of face detection autofocus, which is not available. There are a few differences from their still image counterparts though -- the most obvious being the absence of the beep that serves to confirm AF lock. In C-AF mode, there's also a green frame to indicate the focus point, which is absent in still image mode. Finally, both C-AF and C-AF+TR modes don't hunt around the focus point -- which means they make less objectionable sound on the audio track, but also means they take longer to detect and react to a change in subject distance. Since AF operation is picked up by the camera's internal microphone, you may want to choose either S-AF, S-AF+MF or MF modes to minimize the impact of the focus motor noises.

Olympus E-PL1 Sensor Cleaning

The Olympus E-PL1 features an ultrasonic dust-reduction system, especially important since the E-PL1's shutter is normally open for full-time Live View. The system automatically runs at power-up, and unfortunately, there is no option to disable it or run it manually, as it does contribute to startup time.

We have found that in-camera dust-removal systems are less than perfectly effective. You're still going to need to use a sensor-cleaning kit fairly often, so the advantage of in-body dust removal is perhaps less than it might seem. If you've got dust specks on your sensor (and sooner or later you will), you're going to need to clean it. There are a lot of products out there intended to address this need, but a distressing number of them work poorly (if at all), and many are grossly overpriced. Advertising hype is rampant, with bogus pseudo-scientific jargon and absurd product claims. And prices -- Did I mention prices? How about $100 for a simple synthetic-bristle brush?

So how do you know what product to use?

We don't pretend to have used everything currently on the market, but we can tell you about one solution that worked very well for us. The "Copper Hill" cleaning method is straightforward and safe, and in our routine usage here at Imaging Resource, highly effective. Better yet, the products sold by Copper Hill Imaging are very reasonably priced. Best of all, Nicholas R (proprietor of Copper Hill) has put together an amazingly detailed tutorial on sensor cleaning, free for all.

Sensor cleaning is one of the last things people think about when buying a d-SLR, but it's vital to capturing the best possible images. Take our advice and order a cleaning kit from Copper Hill right along with your d-SLR, so you'll have it close at hand when you need it: You'll be glad you did!

(While they've advertised on our sister site SLRgear.com from time to time, we receive no promotional consideration from Copper Hill for this note. We just think their sensor cleaning products are among the best on the market, and like their way of doing business. -- We think you will too. Click here to check them out.)

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Olympus PEN E-PL1 Photo Gallery .