Our Pen story begins....
We are Olympus OM system SLR cameras user for over 3 decades, When Olympus launched the Four Thirds E-1 DSLR in 2003 we were there to witness the launching. Despite being a believer of the Four Thirds concept suffice to said we left the E-1 launching disappointed with that camera.
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| Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge taken from Sydney Opera House just before a late evening rainstorm. -- camera; Olympus OM4Ti 35mm SLR with Olympus OM Zuiko 24mm F2.8 lens. |
At launch the Olympus E-1 camera was overpriced, a little under spec, and under performed comparing to other DSLR in the market at launch time. However the quality of the Four Thirds optics live up to the claim of the Four Thirds concepts. The Four Thirds concept of "digital camera from the ground up" of lens and sensor relationship also deliver the deep color of the now often called "Oly color". Nevertheless Olympus had sold a lot of E-1 to many happy users who still love it till now. Maybe we are expecting a digital OM that made us disappointed with the Olympus E-1!
So we started our search for a digital SLR from other brands(sorry Olympus we are not brand loyalist). We have not found any that we really like. We were spoilt by the OM system (Yoshihisa Maitani-San, you are just too good in designing camera). Almost all the DSLR we came across in those days were just too heavy, too big, too ugly, too expensive. So we keep on using our beloved OM cameras and also digital compact camera from Canon and Konica Minolta. Those compact digital cameras are fine camera but the sensor are rather tiny and we had to live with many limitation.
The reason we love the Olympus OM system is that, The OM system are simple in operation, beautifully crafted, light weight but sturdily build, the right dimension and most important deliver good result. Many photographers may disagreed with us and we were well aware of it since our OM days. Some photographer preferred a big and heavy camera with a big hand grip. Every photographer have their style of working and way of using their tools. Anyway we use our camera to create photographs not for the purpose of comparing mine is bigger or better than yours. Whatever that works for you is your best camera.
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While we were at the shop for the Olympus E-620 something strange happen. That camera was working flawlessly out of the box when the sale girl show it to us. Once the sales was closed she went on to charging the battery, preparing the kits set and collecting payment from our credit card etc. When she was done and put the battery back into the camera. Guess what? the camera refused to budge at all. After many attempt trying to get that E-620 to work she decided to refund us the money. What another disappointment with Olympus E-system camera!
As we were leaving the shopping mall we walk pass another camera shop. We ask the sale guy "how much is the E-620?" The guy look at us for a second he then pullout a Olympus Pen E-P1 from the display shelve behind him outwardly said "this one is way better".
We have never considered the Olympus Pen camera when we were searching for our new camera. Some how we had the belief the Pen camera is not a mature product or technically not as good as the E-system.
However when I hold the camera in my hand it feel like an encounter with a long lost friend. When My wife handle the camera her eyes brink and she said to me "Hey this one feel like your old OM camera!" Yes that was exactly my impression when I hold the camera in my hand.
That sale guy went on to show us the E-P2, E-PL1 and E-PL2. However the E-P1 just simply feel good even it may not be as good as the other models in many aspect, or has as many features as the other models.
We went home did some more research on the Pen camera and the sale guy was right. So we finally got the Olympus Pen E-P1 so here it goes our pen story begins ...
Embed below is a stop motion video Title "The PEN Story" created by Olympus using the digital PEN camera for the 50 anniversary of The PEN camera.
