![\"blog-2010-photography-DSC_7460-epl1\"](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/blog2010photographyDSC_7460epl1.jpg\" "\\"blog-2010-photography-DSC_7460-epl1\\"")
<\/p>\nNow for the inevitable bug bears. The Olympus Pen m4\/3 cameras have got a lot of flak for their contrast-detection AF system. Basically, it\u2019s slow. If you\u2019ve only used DSLRs, the AF hunting the E-PL1 does is gonna be real annoying. The AF here hunts around for maybe 0.5 seconds before it settles in with that \u2018beep\u2019 informing you that all\u2019s well and good now.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s hard to think of excuses: considering that the Panasonic engineers got their AF speed down pat with their m4\/s\u2019 GF1, while it clearly remained elusive for their Olympus equivalents when designing their new E-PL1. But then again, if you\u2019ve been living mostly off consumer compact cameras, the AF performance of the E-PL1 isn\u2019t really that dissimilar from those cameras. Of course you have that argument that if you\u2019re paying a lot more for what is a premium compact camera…<\/p>\n
This was the one consideration that nearly made me pick up the GF1, the additional 300 moola I\u2019d had to fork out notwithstanding. But I finally reasoned that when outdoors, most of the pictures taken of Hannah right now is when she\u2019s either in her pram or when Ling\u2019s carrying her. In other words, as long as our baby isn\u2019t scampering around on all fours, the E-PL1 comparatively lethargic auto-focusing should still\u00a0 be able to keep up.<\/p>\n
Another niggling thing: notice the five button panel on the camera\u2019s lower right? They\u2019re a tad sensitive. When holding the camera grip with my right hand, there\u2019s been a couple of occasions already now when my palm accidentally depresses one of those buttons when composing a shot. It won\u2019t interrupt your shot thankfully, but you\u2019d see menus unintentionally popping up when that happens.<\/p>\n
The E-PL1 also includes a very nice option for you to set minimum and maximum ISOs when taking shots in P mode, similar to what I can do on the D300. Unlike the DSLR though, there isn’t (or maybe I just haven’t found) an equivalent option to set minimum exposure times. What that’s resulted in are my shots taken on 1\/60s – rather generous considering that the camera has body stabilization – but at the expense of lower ISOs. Some way to set minimum shuttle speed to 1\/30s would had been great.<\/p>\n