James Andrews: Hands-on: Olympus PEN E-P3 review

The design of the new PEN E-P3 is very similar to that of the E-P2 and E-P1 with a few notable distinctions - including a pop-up flash.

Firstly, the mode dial, which is rotated by the thumb of your left hand on the E-P2, has been moved to the right-hand side of the E-P3's top plate - as on the PEN E-PL2. This sits to one side of the shutter release button and on the other is the customisable Fn2 button.

PEN p3 top

ABOVE: The Olympus PEN E-P2

PEN p3 top

ABOVE: Olympus's new PEN E-P3

Like the P2, the Olympus E-P3 has a long control dial built into the thumbrest on its back. On the Olympus E-PL2 this position is taken by the video button, but on the E-P3, the video button is on the camera's back to the left of the thumbrest and small speaker.

PEN p3 rear

ABOVE: Olympus's new PEN E-P3

Olympus pen p2

ABOVE: The Olympus PEN E-P2

There has been a little further rejigging of the buttons on the back of the E-P3 since the E-P2. The auto exposure and auto focus lock (AEL/AFL) button has gone and the Menu, Info and Function buttons have been switched around. It shouldn't take users too long to get used to it, but it will make a slight difference.

It will be interesting to see how much difference the alternative grips make to the feel of the E-P3.

Touchscreen

The new PEN E-P3 is the first PEN from Olympus to feature a touchscreen. The E-P3 features touch AF, which instructs the camera to focus on the point in the scene chosen by a touch of a finger, and, like the Panasonic G3 and GF3, it also has a touch shutter.

Hopefully, the Anti-Fingerprint Coating will help keep the LCD smudge free so that provides a clear view in all lighting conditions.

Autofocus

Olympus shares technology with Panasonic, including the sensor in the new PEN E-P3, PEN Lite and PEN Mini. The Live MOS device has a fast read-out speed of 120fps, which helps to speed-up the contrast detection autofocus (AF) system.

Olympus claims that the TruePic VI processing engine inside its new PEN cameras is faster than Panasonic's Venus Engine VI FHD and it can therefore push the AF system further. As a result, Olympus claims that its new PEN cameras have the world's fastest AF when used with it's MSC (Movie Stills Compatible) optics. We will be putting this and the improved AF tracking ability to the test.

Olympus's TruePic VI processing engine is also claimed to decrease the length of time that the screen blacks-out between exposures, which should make shooting sport much easier.

Having used the PEN E-P3 for several hours it's clear that it has the best handling of any digital Olympus PEN to date.

The buttons and controls are sensibly arranged, the OLED screen provides are clear view even in quite bright light and the menu has had a much needed makeover.

The P3's touchscreen is also responsive and easy to use. We particularly like that the screen's touch-sensitive function can be controlled by touching an icon, which remains active even when the touch feature is deactivated.

Although most users will find that they can use the P3 straightaway without any reference to the manual, there are lots of hidden features that take time to discover. The Highlight and Shadow tone adjustment control for instance is found by accessing the exposure compensation facility and then pressing the Info button. Plenty to explore then.

Noise appears to be pretty well controlled in JPEGS taken at ISO 3200. It's visible, but not objectionable and could even be described as the type of grain that you might occasionally want to add to enhance the atmosphere of a shot.

Push the sensitivity to ISO 6400, however, and noise (and it's control) becomes more troublesome. Even when sized to make relatively small prints, these images look soft and lack details. At 100% on-screen, there's a fair amount of blurring of detail and some image elements lack any definition. It will be interesting to compare the JPEG results with the simultaneously captured raw files one the raw conversion software becomes available.

Further testing is required, but generally the E-P3 handles colours well and its ESP exposure system takes most situations in its stride.

Olympus pen e-p3 image

Colours are bright and punchy straight from the camera

Olympus pen e-p3 image

Shot at f/4 to limit depth of field. Taken with the new M. Zuiko 12mm f/2.0 lens and manually focussed on the eyelashes

Olympus pen e-p3 image

The ESP system puts in a good performance and colours look natural, yet vibrant

Olympus pen e-p3 image

The transition from light to dark along the cobbles has been well handled here

Olympus pen e-p3

The automatic white balance system hasn't been fooled by the warm tones of this bloom, or the mixed lighting

Olympus pen e-p3

Compare with the image below

Olympus pen e-p3

The shadow and highlight adjustment feature has been pushed to maximum to darken the highlights and brighten the shadows to produce this HDR-like image

Olympus pen e-p3

Taken with the same tonal adjustment options as the image above, to produce another low-contrast HDR image

Olympus pen e-p3

The Grainy Film Art Filter in action

Olympus pen e-p3

Pin hole and Crossed Processed Art Filters combined

Olympus pen e-p3

In reasonable light using ISO 3200 produces a pleasant level of farily uniform noise

Olympus pen e-p3

When light levels fall, JPEG images taken at ISO 6400 have slightly oversharpened edges and lack fine detail. There's also some mottling of red, green and blue

Olympus pen e-p3

ISO 6400

The rest of the camera testing team spent the day in London testing out the new Olympus PEN E-P3, testing out the fast autofocus claims and putting art filters in action. Here are some more pictures taken with the E-P3 ahead of our full review, which is coming soon.

Olympus pen e-p3 sample image