EP-1 vs. EP-2 vs. GF-1

<p>I do a lot of street shooting. The Panasonic GF1 is fantastic. Virtually no lag.</p>

<p>I have same doubts. I was decided to get GF-1, but than I change my mind and went for Olympus PEN E-P1. Why? I went to to a local photo-store and I tried it. I was concerned about AF, but AF is just fine. There is so much settings for AF that I am sure, you will find one that suits you. I have set my PEN E-P1 in a way, that with one press of a button I can toggle between S-AF/face recognition and MF with pre-focused lens ( and while in MF, able to focus with AE/AF button!). No, E-P1 is not a fast action camera. But nighter is GF-1!</p>

<p>At : Jay Davidson<br /> The response to your question about depth of field is wrong. The D.O.F scales are not affected by sensor size. A given lens has the same depth of field regardless of which camera or sensor it is mounted in front of. The issue with D.O.F arises from the fact that wide angle lenses have a greater depth of field than telephoto lenses and, smaller sensors require a wider lens to achieve equivalent angles of view.</p>

<p>I'm not sure if what I write is relevant still or not and you have already made your decision, but at Lens&Shutter here in Victoria they have an ep-1 on sale for $599 with the zoom lens. They also had a leica M adapter so I grabbed my summicron 50mm 2.0 and spent some time trying it out.<br>

Functionally it's doable. You put the camera in manual mode, check the option about allowing the camera to take pictures without a lens, and it all works. If you press the select button in this mode, you get a focus help that magnifies the centre of the image. Unfortunately, with a 50mm lens that becomes a 100mm on the micro 4/3, there is an incredible amount of vibration in the viewfinder while in this mode. In a hand held mode it is difficult to focus with precision, but it is still doable.<br>

However, there is something not quite right with the in body stabilization IMO. Almost all images taken inside the store (which wasn't all that dark) still came motion-blurred, even with the lens open all the way.<br>

My stellar Leica lens only produced marginally (if at all) better results than the cheap-looking and cheap feeling olympus zoom lens, which by the way is very light. It must not have very much glass inside! All images were too soft, on both lenses, even after turning down the filtering. The colors were more washed out with the leica lens, probably due to its less contrasty nature.<br>

All in all I was underwhelmed by the experience. I went there to buy it at this price but realized that the image quality was simply not there. Again, IMO, you end up with an outfit that is bulky and perhaps not even as good as, say, an LX3 in terms of image quality.</p>

 

<p>The EP-1 and GF-1 are great concepts, allowing us the use of adapters and thus almost all manner of lenses.<br>

I can't wait for their full-frame cameras with lens interchangeability.</p>

<p>Hmm, I thought we might want to revive this old thread. Now that Olympus has finally fixed it's autofocus with a firmware update, it seems that the only differences between the Panasonic and Olympus models come down to handling. And the Panasonic also corrects for CA + distortion in camera, while the Olympus only corrects distortion iirc. But beyond this, are the Panasonic and Olympus models basically about the same now?</p>

<p>No not really - the follow is not from first hang usage so take it with a grain of salt:<br>

olympus: better in camera jpeg engine; in body is, will auto focus 4/3 lenses (such as 14-54) that support contrast focus (I forget if the non-contrast focus lenses such as 12-60 will work)<br>

panasonic: better auto focus (the firmware improved olympus but it is still not as good), lighter anti-alias filter (the ep-1 is close in this area), tend to be better build.</p>

<p>There are a few other differences based on specific models some support external evf; the ep-1 does not support rotation and so forth. My biggest gripes are the mush mash with lenses that will and will not work and the relatively expensive adapter. Having played with an ep-1 very briefly I cannot see how I would use it without the evf and with such it is over $700; a bit pricey in my book.</p>

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<p>panasonic: better auto focus (the firmware improved olympus but it is still not as good), lighter anti-alias filter (the ep-1 is close in this area), tend to be better build.</p>

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<p>Did you see any published tests for this? I believe DPR's tests claim that Olympus's AF is as good as Panasonic's with the latest firmware update.</p>

<p>Also I think the P2 adds art fiilters (meh), manual controls in movie mode (meh) and AF tracking, which is useful in some situations, but I find single AF enough for more situations, so it wouldn't be enough to justify the price difference.</p>

 

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<p>There are a few other differences based on specific models some support external evf; the ep-1 does not support rotation and so forth.</p>

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<p>Yup, I can probably live w/ the EVF by using a LCD shade instead. What do you mean by rotation? Rotation of the image with an orientation sensor? That can certainly be skipped.</p>

<p>IBIS on the Olympus certainly makes it the more attractive camera, especially if it's AF is now up to par or at least close enough for most situations.</p>