Olympus PEN E-P1 digital camera resource

Last update: Sep. 13th, 2012 Sep. 13th: Lenses section updated

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Technical data and reference manuals

• Olympus E-P1 complete specifications
• Software for the E-P1 can be downloaded here.
• The complete reference manual can be downloaded here.
• See here the FAQs of Olympus America.
• Here are the Q&A of Olympus Japan.
  

Reviews and previews

• photozone.de have a detailed multi-page review of the E-P1, with many scientific tests, about noise levels, dynamic range, resolution etc.
  
• Steve's Digicams have a detailed multipage review of the E-P1.
• Imaging Resource have a multipage review of the Olympus E-P1 with lots of data.
• DCResource have an interesting and detailed review of the Olympus E-P1 with many images and tests.
• See dpreview's in-depth review of the E-P1.
• Andrzej Wrotniak has an interesting article about the Olympus E-P1 and the micro 4/3 system in general on his site, however without tests since he didn't buy the camera.
  
• See the interesting Olympus E-P1 review by Thom Hogan, a Nikon expert.
  
• John Foster wrote an article about the Olympus E-P1, with some images taken with the E-P1.
• The cameralabs.com review is interesting and contains a side-by-side comparison to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 / FZ38 and the Nikon D90.
• PhotographyBlog have a detailed multipage review of the E-P1.
• TrustedReviews have an interesting multipage review with a noise comparison at various ISO levels.
• Ken Tanaka has posted a one page review of the Olympus E-P1. No tests, but interesting to read and many reader comments.
  
• Let's go digital have published a multipage review of the E-P1 with several test images.
• outbackphoto have an interesting blog-style review of the Olympus E-PL1.
  
• Pocket-lint have a brief review of the Olympus E-P1.
• ephotozine have a brief review with some test images of the Olympus E-PL1.
• See the one-page review of the Olympus E-PL1 by digicamreview.com. Some high ISO and lens tests.
• photocrati.com have a brief review of the E-PL1.
• You might want to have a look at the opinion of cnet.com about the Olympus E-PL1.
  

Sample images

• Imaging resource have a page with a large number of full resolution test images (studio and outdoors) taken at different ISOs and camera settings. Outdoor images and many indoor studio test images.
• DCResource have a page with 16 high resolution samples taken at different ISOs and different lenses.
• dpreview have a gallery with 48 high res samples of the E-P1 taken at different ISO settings and with different lenses.
• Steve's Digicams has 29 full resolution samples taken with the 14-42 lens at different ISO settings.
• See the page of photographyblog.com with 34 full resolution samples of the E-P1, 12 RAW image files and a video.
• letsgodigital.org have a page with some  high resolution samples at ISO settings from 100 to 1250

RAW file format

• Dave Coffin is listing on his dcraw page every RAW image processing software which either is using his decoder or use the decoder as documentation (scroll down to "Other Raw Photo Decoders").
  
• Some of these packages are free, some are not.
  
• If you use Photoshop you will need CS4 or later versions, because CS3 (or earlier versions) cannot import the camera raw file filters needed for the Olympus E-P1 RAWs. The only option with earlier Photoshop versions is to convert to DNG with the free Adibe DNG converter.
  
• Another good RAW converter is Olympus Studio.
• Even Irfanview can decode E-P1 RAW files, thanks to the dcraw code.
  

Memory cards

• The E-P1 takes SD memory cards only (no CF or xD cards). It is compatible to SDHC cards and Olympus recommends Class 6 cards.
  
• Top write performance seems to be a sustained 1.3 RAW images/s and 1.9 SHQ JPEG images/second, implying a sustained write speed performance around 18 MB/s (fast class 6 SD cards used for the test).
  
• Until the internal camera buffer is full (i.e. up to approx. 14 RAW images), the E-P1 is capable of shooting 2.8 RAW images/s, which is very good.
  

Firmware

• Firmware updates released so far (can be downloaded here):

• E-P1 Firmware Ver1.4 has incorporated the following upgrade.
• Improved auto focus speed.
• Improved tracking of C-AF (continuous AF) when recording movies while using M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 9-18mm F4.0-5.6 or M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-150mm F4.0-5.6.
• Support for the new M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 9-18mm F4.0-5.6 lens. Frame rate of live view may be reduced if this lens is used without updating firmware.
  
• E-P1 Firmware Ver1.3 has incorporated the following upgrade. (March 3, 2010)
• Resolved issue in firmware version 1.2 where LEVEL GAUGE display did not move when using MF (manual focus).

• E-P1 Firmware Ver1.2 has incorporated the following upgrade.
• Reduced time of the MF ASSIST enlarged display to improve operability.
• REC VIEW enabled when the monitor's backlight is set to off.
  

• E-P1 Firmware Ver1.1 has incorporated the following upgrade.
• Improved operation when using C-AF (continuous AF).
• Olympus recommend Version 1.1 or later of the lens firmware if you are using the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 17mm F2.8 or the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm F3.5-5.6.
  

Questions ? Comments ? Put them in the Olympus E-P1 user group

Chromatic aberrations / Purple fringing

• To remove chromatic aberrations you can process the RAW image with the Adobe Photohop RAW plugin or with the PTlens filter.
  
• To remove chromatic aberrations with an image editor (desaturation of the magentas):
• It is very simple to remove chromatic aberrations from an image. Simply use a photo editor and set the saturation level of magenta (also green where this makes sense) to the minimum. In some images you might have to set the saturation level of red to the minimum. It might also make sense to limit the processing to the affected area (i.e. select the affected image area and only process that).

Accessories

• See here all accessories for the Olympus E-P1.
  

Infrared photography with the Olympus E-P1

• Echeng.com: Digital infrared photography - site devoted to digital infrared photography with image galleries, information about filters and equipment and links.
• Wrotniak's Infrared Photography page - excellent information resource devoted to infrared photography with Olympus cameras. Information about infrared filters, exposure settings, focus, post-processing, sample images and links.
• Also see the Infrared photography page of the Apogee magazine: this is an interesting general introduction to infrared photography with digital cameras.

Lenses

• Micro four thirds lenses are currently available from Olympus, Leica and Panasonic:

• Also see the following lenses:
  • SLR Magic Nokton 12mm f/1.6
    
  • Tokina Reflex 300mm F6.3 Mirror Lens (Micro Four Thirds)
  • Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 Lenses:
    • A set of 12 "cine" lenses, with focal lengths ranging from 15 to 135mm.
  • MS-Optical Sonnetar 25mm f/1.1
  • ShenyangZhongyi 35mm f/0.95
  • Yasuhara Nanohax5 5x Macro Lens

• The following lens adapters are available:

• And the following conversion lenses:

• Also have a look at the page of Gary Ayton about micro 4/3 lenses.
• Photozone.de have detailed and accurate reviews of micro 4/3 lenses.

• Four thirds lenses are currently available from Olympus and Leica and can be used with the MMF-1, MMF-2 or DMW-MA1 adapters:

• Wide angle and Fisheye

• Standard zooms

• Superzooms

• Telephoto zooms

• Prime lenses (fixed focal length)

• Extension tubes, teleconverters and adapters

• Photozone.de have detailed and accurate reviews of four thirds lenses.

External flash

• The Olympus E-P1 has a standard flash hotshoe and can take standard external flashes (among others the FL-20, FL-36 and FL-50).
• Try out the Metz flash units - cheap and reliable. Alternatively try the FL-36 or other Olympus flash units.
  
• See here for how to measure the trigger voltage of your flash.

Controlling the Olympus E-P1 with a computer

• Currently no software with which you can control the E-P1 with a computer is available. Olympus Studio can't be used for this.
 

Underwater Photography

• No underwater housing from Olympus is available yet.
  
• There is an underwater case from Athena, the OM-P1. This is waterproof to depths of 60m and has clear ports for viewing the important parts of the snapper such as the mode dial and, of course, the rear LCD. This however costs an arm and a leg, at 1790 Euro (= 2400 USD at the current exchange rate).
• Note that you'll need to spend more money for lens ports, strobes etc., all items ranging between 400 and 1300 Euro.
  
• The site Digideep.com is an online directory for digital underwater photography.
• Interesting forum for underwater photography: DigitalDiver.net

Data recovery

• Jpegdump, by Kurt Stege, is a free tool to recover deleted images from a memory card. Recommended, alough it involves more work an e tool of Convar.
  
• These software tools are not free, so since Convar's software is available for free, there is no real need to use them:
  
• Datarescue also has a software tool (Photorescue) for repairing damaged memory cards, although it's not free.
• Photorecovery is another tool. Price is $39.95.

Noise reduction

• In addition to the E-P1's inbuilt noise reduction, you can post-process the images with NeatImage. This software package produces surprisingly good results.
• Here is a comparison of different noise reduction software tools.

Exposure information data (EXIF)

• The picture files of the Olympus E-P1 contain the complete exposure information (aperture, exposure time, focal leng, white balance etc.).
• To read this data you can use these software tools:
• ExifReader, by Ryuuji Yoshimoto. Haven't tried the software myself, but it looks interesting. Freeware.
• Exif Image Viewer, by Michal Kowalski. This is the one I'm using. Quoting from his homepage:

"EXIF viewer is a simple image viewer application for photos taken with digital cameras. It's capable of reading EXIF information embedded in photos as well as little thumbnail. Because small thumbnail is already present in most photos displaying it is really fast.
EXIF viewer can also provide detailed information about photos (shutter speed, aperture, etc.) and conveniently list them for comparison purposes.
EXIF viewer also displays image histogram. It also features copying/moving and deleting of selected photos. Single photograph can be displayed in separate window or in a full screen mode."
• Exifer, by Friedemann Schmidt. I'm using this one too. It can rewrite EXIF data to images which lost it due to processing with a software package which doesn't support EXIF. Quoting from his site:

"Exifer is a nearly free software (you only should send me a postcard if you're using Exifer frequently) with which you can manage the metadata (EXIF/IPTC) of pictures taken by digital cameras. Because many image processing software destroys this metadata when saving such files, the idea was to create a backup of the metadata before editing it in any software, and then, after that to restore it back into the processed file. With Exifer you can do this very easily. "

Questions ? Comments ? Put them in the Olympus E-P1 user group

Panorama shots

• Personally I can recommend PTGUI (which I have been using for years now): not free but an excellent piece of software.
  
• Some interesting links:
• http://www.skipwilliams.com/panos/panorama_links.htm
• http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/~bernardk/tutorials/360/calibrate/
• http://www.johnhpanos.com/pttute.htm
• Tripod specific for panoramas: http://www.kaidan.com/

Astrophotography with the Olympus E-P1

• Here is an astrophotography forum for users of the Olympus DSLRs
  
• Astrophotography users's group here
• This may be also a good source.

Links

• MyOlympus.org photo sharing site: here Olympus E-P1 users can upload images and give/get feedback
• Yahoo Olympus E-P1 discussion group: a discussion group dedicated to e Olympus E-P1 digital camera