Olympus PEN E-P3 Digital Camera

One of the recent developments in the digital camera space has been the introduction of the mirror less, micro four-third sensor cameras. Some of the companies that are really pushing the envelope have been Olympus and Panasonic. There are a bunch of things that make these sort of cameras interesting. They are compact, although not as compact as the smallest point and shoot cameras and yet have the ability to produce SLR quality images. The reason for that is they have larger sensor sizes than point and shoot cameras, which means they have superior image quality.

14-42 mm lens bundled up

Olympus used to sell the PEN line of cameras during the film camera era. A few years back, they re-introduced the PEN line of cameras again, this time in the form of digital cameras. Now, there’s a new model. It’s called the E-P3 and it’s the flagship model of the PEN range. Two cheaper models, the E-PM1 and the E-PL3 are yet to follow. The E-P3, like the older E-P1 and E-P2 are targeted at those who are looking to upgrade from a point and shoot camera to a camera with better performance, minus the complexities of a full-fledged DSLR. We first looked at these cameras at an Olympus briefing held in Mumbai, a few weeks back.

Design and Build Quality
The PEN E-P3 has not changed much in design since its predecessors. The PEN E-P3 we received in our labs was a stylish matte black camera with hints of chrome highlights along the edges. Like other PEN cameras, it is compact in design and can fit easily in the hand. It is slightly larger than a standard point and shoot.

40 - 150 mm lens option also available

Unlike the E-P1 and E-P2, this camera comes with a built-in flash that is concealed in the frame of the camera. A simple press of a button next to it is all it takes to deploy the flash that is held inside the body by a set of springs and hinges. These buttons include a dedicated video recording button for shooting videos at 1080i and a Fn1 key  for setting various functions of this camera. Other controls found on the rear of the camera are standard buttons, which are seen on most cameras such as a four way navigational button for flash, aperture priority, auto focus and a timer. The navigational pad also doubles as a scroll for adjusting various camera settings. Besides these the other buttons found are playback, info, menu and erase. A silver jog dial is also located on the back and this is used for adjusting wide-angle and telephoto.

Mode dial on the top

On the top of the camera is a mode dial for changing between the different modes of the PEN E-P3. Other buttons found here are a camera shutter-release button, on/off switch and a secondary function button called Fn2, which can be used to change ISO sensitivity in the manual mode. It has different functions in the different shooting modes.

The camera being slightly smaller than a DSLR isn’t the easiest to grip with one hand. The handgrip on the camera is interchangeable with additional options being made available to users. These can be installed by merely screwing them on to the body. Olympus has bundled a 1150 mAh battery along with the camera and the battery bay is located underneath.

Mini HDMI port available

Features
The Olympus E-P3 uses a micro four-third, 12.3 MP sensor. Its distinct design means there’s no folding mirror mechanism. The screen at the rear is a 3-inch, 6,14,000 dots one. Olympus specifies that the screen used is an OLED. Unlike most other cameras, the E-P3 comes with a touchscreen interface, which is used primarily for selecting focus areas on the screen and also for altering settings.

Spring loaded flash

Olympus provides lens options with the E-P3. The standard kit includes only the stock 14-42mm (3.5-5.6) lens. We received the dual-kit lens kit, which includes an additional 40-150mm (4-5.6) lens. Other than the proprietary USB port, there’s also a mini-HDMI port so you can output videos to a large TV or projector.