A shot of my fiancé from my first shoot with the Olympus E-PL2.
Ditching my DSLR
For a number of reasons, including wanting to free up some money, to conentrate on wedding planning, hunting for a job, and finishing my dissertation, I decided to sell my Canon 5D Mark II a few months ago. In
another year or so, once I'm settled into a new city and a new job, I may get a
DSLR again, but in the meantime I wanted a (relatively) cheap camera I could throw in a jacket pocket or satchel without adding too much weight to my load. Of course everybody will have different requirements for a camera, but I hope this is useful to anybody considering something a step above your average compact camera.
What I was looking for
I have an iPhone 4, which has a pretty decent camera itself, but is lacking in certain ways. I had the following list of requirements in mind:
- Image quality approaching that of entry level DSLRs
- Relatively good high ISO performance
- Aperture priority and other manual modes
- A fast lens, with some control over depth of field
- A compact and light body and lens
Choosing the right camera
In the end, I went with the Olympus E-PL2, a micro four thirds camera. Micro four thirds cameras tend to be small, have a lot of options for compact lenses, and sensors aren't that much smaller than on an entry level DSLR. I'm pairing the E-PL2 with a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens, and so far am very happy with the combination. I wish the E-PL2 were a little thinner and lighter, but you can't have everything.
I researched and dismissed about a dozen competitors before settling on the E-PL2:
- Canon G12: From what I understand, images get very noisy very quickly when you use ISO > 100
- Olympus XZ-1: The camera is compact, there's no need to deal with interchangeable lenses, the lens is fast and has a ~4x zoom, but image quality and low light performance were questionable. I'm sure it serves a lot of people well, but it didn't quite cut it in my mind.
- Panasonic GF2: Panasonic seems to have problems getting products they've announced onto the market. Further, early reviews have complained that the touch screen isn't very responsive. Being an iPhone user, I'm afraid this would drive me crazy. Touch screens are great in theory, but bad touch screens are considerably worse than dials or buttons.
- Panasonic GH2: The video from this camera is apparently very good, but I don't care about video and I'm not interested in the extra bulk. That said, this camera is clearly a step above the GF2 / E-PL2 with regards to image quality.
- Fuji x100: This camera looks fantastic, but $1,200 is a lot of money to drop on a camera with no support for interchangeable lenses and a fixed focal length lens. If I had more money, I might have gone with this camera.
- Sony nex-5: This is far cheaper than the Fuji x100 and has interchangeable lenses, but I wasn't impressed with the lens selection. The two kits lenses aren't as fast as I'd like, and using bulky lenses designed for DSLRs defeats the purpose of having a small camera body.
- Nikon EVIL: If Nikon had released their long-rumored mirror-less camera at a reasonable price, I would have strongly considered that. In fact, if there offering is good enough, I may not ever go back to a DSLR. I still have concerns about the size and weight of lenses though.
Unexpected benefits
I fully expected to be taking a step backwards in every aspect except portability. I was pleasantly surprised to find there were a few things about the E-PL2 that I liked better than the 5D Mark II:
- I quite like the 4/3 aspect ratio, though I'll see how I feel about it when I want to make prints.
- Autofocus tracking with the electronic view finder is great. There's a feature where you do something like a focus-and-recompose, except you keep the shutter halfway depressed while you recompose. The green focus indicator will follow that object that you've focused on around the EVF and always keep it in focus. DSLRs can have similar features, but this implementation really shows off what an EVF / hybrid view finder can do.
- The EVF Histogram shows you exactly where your highlights are and makes it easy do decide whether or not you care. You know where those highlights are before you even press the shutter!
- I can now do bracketing for exposure with up to 7 shots. I never understood why Canon could not figure out how to do this in the 5D Mark II firmware.
- My laptop and desktop have build in SD card readers so I don't need to carry around a cable and reader.
Another Day, Another Amazing Sunset on Maui by Chris Hlady, on Flickr
maui, 
