I have been proud owner and user of an
Olympus E-P2 for a little over a year now.
While in general I am very happy with it and the image quality, there are a few practical issues I thought might be interesting to know about.
Let me start with the
EVF which for me makes this camera such a pleasure to use.
I like that it can be flipped up and make frequent use of this feature either to make sure I don't attract people's attention in street photography situations by effectively looking down, not at them, or simply to change the viewing angle ever so slightly from the eye line view one would normally have. However, with a year of use the somewhat flimsy little plastic hook that snaps the eye piece back down has worn away so much that it doesn't do any snapping at all these days. I am now holding it down with a black
soft grip hairband.
The diopter control, while certainly useful for some people, is taped down in my case as it would quite often move around when packing the camera or taking it out of the bag and needed some fiddling with when I really wanted to take a picture, resulting in losing that particular moment. I am short-sighted and wear glasses or contact lenses all the time (have since I was 11 years old) and cannot conceive of an occasion when I would wish to take the glasses off or the lens out just to take a picture.
Also, now that I have a rather hefty lens in the
Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 for M43, the VF fell off a couple of times as I walked around with the camera around my neck. It was tilted forward by the weight of the lens and the VF encountered the resistance of my jacket which pushed it out of the hotshoe. It would also slip out a little bit sometimes, just enough to disconnect, when putting the camera into the bag lens down. I've for now solved this problem with another lovely pink soft grip hairband. It would be good if the next generation EVF had some kind of locking mechanism, like DSLR TTL flash guns do.
Overall, I think for such a vital part of the camera and a price tag on its own of £219 one should be able to expect a little more attention to durability, sturdiness and security.
Moving on to the menu design of the E-P2, there is an issue when using non-Olympus manual focus lenses: it is very fiddly at the moment to change vital settings like ISO and WB when in the focus assist mode, which allows enlarging the area one wants to focus on in the VF. Once those settings have been changed, it then requires another two presses on the info button to get back into focus assist. Too much time in most situations to still get the picture. Could the focus assist function be given its own button or barring that, is it possible to customise a button to that function? And/or could the ISO be set through a separate mechanic dial which would allow making this basic change before even powering up the camera?
Personally, I am looking forward to what else might come out in the M43 standard. I feel it is the right system for me, allowing for the same flexibility in terms of lenses as SLRs but at a fraction of the weight and bulk.
