Olympus E-PL3 -
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Intro
Olympus launched its Penitentiary range of Small Four Thirds mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (ILCs) with the E-P1 in 2008. Announced in June 2011 the Pen E-PL3 is the third generation of the range that melds the company's painting 60's design with 21st century digital imaging technology. Nicknamed the 'Indite Light' the E-PL3 is a smaller, lighter and simpler version of the Indite flagship E-P3 and is now also joined by a 3rd Pen, the entry-level E-PM1, too called the Pen Mini.
With the E-PL3, the party has taken over a step away from the classic Pen stylus of the sooner models. Information technology's significantly smaller, though not much lighter than its predecessor and sports a new 16:9 flip-up screen and a redesigned 12.3 Megapixel sensor. The built-in flash is gone, replaced aside a clip-happening unit and there's a new AF attend to lamp to augment the capabilities of the improved 35-item contrast notice AF system.
The E-PL3 crapper shoot 1080i60 picture in AVCHD format and improves connected the E-PL2's continuous shooting with a top swiftness of 5.5 frames per second. With improved-in sensor-stir image stabilisation and an ISO sensitivity range that now extends to 12800 ISO its low light performance is considerably improved.
Like Both Panasonic and Sony, Olympus has its sights steadfastly set happening migrants looking for a richer photography experience than their point-and-shoot can offer. But information technology's no easy thing designing a range that includes models for everyone, particularly in the middle dry land, where both rest of use of goods and services and advanced features must cohabit harmonious. Has Mt. Olympus got the mix right with the E-PL3, or is the Panasonic Lumix GF3 operating room the Sony Of import NEX-C3 a ameliorate convulsion for some compact snappers looking to trade raised and enthusiasts in search of advanced features in a more compact car form. Read our wide-cut review to find out.
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Olympus Write out E-PL3 Design and controls
Though non appreciably lighter than its predecessor, the Pen E-PL3 is significantly littler. Merely to a higher degree the diminution in size, it's the redesign that sets it separated. Gone is the retro Pen styling, replaced by a sleek modern compact attend. Its interesting how some Panasonic with the Lumix GF3 and Olympus with the E-PL3 seem to cost going in similar directions style-judicious.
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Disdain the riffle-up screen the E-PL3 is a slimmer photographic camera than the E-PL2, with no shapely-in flash. Borrowing from the Sony NEX design, Olympus has slimmed the body by extending the crystalline lens mount on the front panel. The other thing noticeable by its absence is the advanced grip. Demoted on the E-P3 to a clip-on appurtenance, it's disappeared from the E-PL3 all going away the front dental plate a plain lacquered expanse. The E-PL3 isn't as comfortable in the hand as the E-PL2 was, but it's undeniably better look.
Happening the rear a parvenu thumb embellish makes for a advisable grip and each the natural science controls from the in the beginning mannikin are thither, albeit rearranged in an improved layout ready-made realistic by the angulate panel that forms a transition between the top and rear surfaces. To the socialistic side of the accessory port are the playback and delete buttons and connected the other are the Function button and magnifier nonnegative the devoted film record button. Below the thumb embellish is the four-means control wheel around flanked clear and bottom by info and menu buttons. One other thing that is worthy of remark at this channelis is that the E-PL3 retains its corporal mode dial, a feature neither the Sony NEX-C3 nor the Lumix GF3 derriere claim to and something that Crataegus laevigata be a deciding factor out if you like to experiment with different exposure modes.
The move from a 3:2 aspect ratio screen to a 16:9 one will be seen by many as a regressive step, but beingness able to flip the screen either up or down, NEX-style is a marked betterment. Spell it doesn't help with portrait shooting I found being able-bodied to flip the screen up better visibility in bright conditions as well as existence Thomas More comfortable when shooting from blue angles. But it likewise needs to beryllium said that, though it's ideal for movie shooting, for 4:3 vista ratio stills shot a significant portion of the screen is unused resulting in large black bars down either side of the screen.
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Though the E-PL3 doesn't have an optical finder both optical and electronic viewfinders are available as hotshoe mounted accessories that secure into the AP2 accessory port antitrust on a lower floor the hotshoe in the rear panel. The supplied outside flash slides in Here without any of the fiddling around knotty with the NEX-C3 one, then it flips up for practice. A guide count of 10 at 200 ISO gives it a range of 2.8 metres with the f3.5-5.6 kit lens at its widest slant setting and maximum aperture – precisely the selfsame as the Sony NEX-C3's supplied foreign twinkling. The E-PL3 is also congruous with Olympus' FL36R and FL50R wireless winkle units.
The E-PL3 has a combined battery/card compartment on the humble of the camera. Likewise as the supplied BLS-1 Li-Ion battery it's compatible with the older BLS-5 models. The shelling life is quoted at 330 shots using the CIPA standard examination methods. The E-PL3 is compatible with SD, SDHC and SDXC memory card game and cards with a speed category of at any rate 6 are recommended for movie recording.
Olympus Write out E-PL3 lens and stabilisation
We tested the E-PL3 with the M. Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II R MSC kit rapid growth Lens. The R stands for 'Revived', but aside from some cosmetic differences this is essentially the same kit up lens as boxed with the E-PL2. It has a retracting design which makes it reasonably compact, especially compared with the stabilized kit zooms for the Sony NEX-C3 and Lumix GF3. Micro Four Thirds lenses feature a crop factor of two, making the 35mm equivalent range 28-84mm
| Mt. Olympus Pen E-PL3 with 14-24mm reportage wide-cut | Olympus Pen E-PL3 with 14-42mm coverage tele | |
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| 14-42 mm at 14mm (28mm combining weight) | 14-42mm at 42mm (84mm equivalent) |
Like all Pen models, the E-PL3 body is fitted with sensor-transformation image stabilisation. On that point are three modes, 1 works on both axes, 2 is vertical only, for panning shots and 3 is horizontal just, for portraiture mode panning.
I tested the E-PL3's stabilisation by zooming the kit genus Lens to its maximum 42mm (84mm equivalent) central duration and winning a serial of hand-held shots at progressively slower shutter speeds with the camera in Shutter anteriority exposure mode, first with the stabilisation turned off, then set to mode 1 (both horizontal and vertical stabilisation).
| Olympus E-PL3 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 IS Off/Along (mood 1) | ||||
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| 100% crop, 14-42mm at 42mm, 200 ISO 1/10th, IS off. | 100% crop, 14-42mm at 42mm, 200 ISO 1/10th, IS on. | |||
The graze on the left is from the shot with IS turned off and the peerless happening the right is with it soured along in mode 1. The stabilised crop looks a tiny number soft so camera shake hasn't been completely eliminated but I've secondhand this case rather than the sharper 15th of a second crop because I think over it's just about acceptable. Also, the final gallery shot which was handheld at 1/6th of a second demonstrates that the E-PL3 is equal to of three stops of stabilisation.
Olympus Pen E-PL3 shooting modes
In increase to PASM modes the E-PL3 has point and Shoot iAuto way with scene detection. Olympus pioneered results-founded controls and so information technology's no surprisal to view Live Head controls come out when you press the centre button on the control wheel. The E-PL3 also has another Olympus innovation that's been adopted in one form or another by both Sony and Panasonic, Fine art filters. The E-PL3 has the very 6 art modes as the E-PL2 – Pop Art, Soft Focus on, Grainy Take, Pin Hole, Diorama, and Hammy Tonus – but the customisation options have been extended with a wider choice of filter effects and framing.
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The PEN E-PL3 mode dial has a movie position which provides a full screen 16:9 view so you can frame up your shooting properly. You throne argue the pros and cons of a 16:9 blind, simply being able to use the full screen sphere to frame shots prior to shooting at least makes the all but of it.
In PASM modes the E-PL3 provides good access to exposure settings which are activated past pressing the upbound position on the manipulate wheel. In Political program auto mode you can and so shift the aperture/shutter speed compounding either by up/down pushes on the control pedal or by rotating IT, with photo recompense achieved by pushy the left/right positions. This quickly becomes second nature and the only thing that gets in the direction, literally, is the control wheel's law of proximity to the protruding right edge of the flip-up screen. With corresponding setups for the semi automatic and manual exposure modes, patc it lacks the E-P3's thumbwheel, you always feel fully control of exposure.
Olympus Write E-PL3 picture modes
The E-PL3's best prize moving picture mode is 1080i60 which is encoded A an AVCHD Indian file at an average bitrate of 17Mbps. At that place's likewise a 13Mbps selection at the same resolution and two 720p settings at 17Mbps and 13Mbps. Finally, in that respect's a 720p option that records editing-friendly Mjpeg files at 30fps and a standard resolution 640×480 mode.
Movies can be shot in any of the PASM modes and with the Artistic creation filters either by selecting the required mode on the dial then pressing the record clit, operating room by selecting movie mode on the dial and choosing the exposure modality from the Live Control menu. In manual exposure manner, you also have extremity manipulate concluded ISO sensibility, which in the some other modes is determinate on auto. While information technology's great to deliver the option of shot movie footage using the Art filters (you rump see an example of the miniature Art filter in action in our Olympus E-P3 inspection) umteen of them result in slow jerky playback at severely reduced frame rates. You crapper inject noneffervescent a image during movie transcription (though recording Chicago, then a bran-new clip is started) and in that location's an option to automatically postulate a changeable at the end of each clip.
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The E-PL3's slighly warm colour bias is also evident along video footage. The focus gets a bit lost on the zoom out, but recovers in the end. The worrying frame wriggle just before the whizz proscribed could Be a stabilisation artifact.
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The auto exposure and white symmetry is very amenable on this tripod mounted panning shot, but whatsoever consistency might have been less distracting. Suchlike the NEX-C3 and GF3, the E-PL3's CMOS sensor International Relations and Security Network't troubled by bright water reflections.
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Again, the Write EPL-3's exposure, albumen balance and focus are perpetually busy in this interior helping hand-held panning shot to hold back everything on track.
Olympus Pen E-PL3
handling
The E-PL3 is very quick off the blocks, beingness ready to shoot well within a 2nd of pressing the connected/off button. If you turn it on, then imperativeness the shutter button there's only a moment's hesitation before it fires – providing of naturally you've already extended the kit zoom.
Olympus has made much of the improved AF speed of the third generation Pens and the E-PL3 is noticeably quicker than its predecessor, not to mention more sophisticated with 35 AF regions compared with 11 previously. As earlier you can Lashkar-e-Tayyiba the camera choose the AF part automatically, operating room select one yourself by pressing the left button connected the control wheel. The inclusion of an AF assist lamp on the figurehead panel improves it's low-light AF performance and you can focus manually, though the exaggeration options don't employment at seamlessly as they mightiness.
I've already talked approximately how the physical mode dial makes direct access to exposure modes a great deal easier than on models like the Lumix GF3 and NEX-C3, and the E-PL3 shares the accessible and extremely customisable user interface of its higher end sibling the E-P3. The Live Control shortcut menu displays appropriate options for the current shooting mode on the right of the CRT screen with available settings for the elite alternative arrayed along the bottom of the screen.
Buried away in the custom menu is an option that's disabled by default, but deserving tracking down if you like to have your ascendence patty, with icing on, and eat it. The capably onymous Super Control panel is a one-on-one screen that provides access to everything that matters from ISO and White balance to Gradation and colour space. You simply select the required setting from the gridiron and use the check wheel to cycle done the options. Having IT all on unrivaled screen isn't as consuming as you'd imagine and information technology means not having to hunt through menus looking for a setting if you'ray non sure where to find it. Plus you can toggle between the Live Insure and SCP view by pressing the info release.
The Write out serial has quickly gained a reputation for being highly customisable and with quartet impost buttons the E-PL3 can quickly be moulded to suit your individual shooting style. You can flat allocate the movie record button to a custom function in which case the shutter liberation becomes the record button, the only drawback of this setup being that you sacrifice one-mite movie recording as you must first select movie move on the mode dial.
An improved continuous shooting rate of 5.5 frames per second base puts the E-PL3 ahead of the Lumix GF3 and along an equate footing with the NEX-C3. Unequal the Lens-stable NEX-C3 the Olympus E-PL3's sensor-shift stabilisation does stimulate an effect along sequential shooting rates. In the E-PL3's fastest sequential shot way which locks the centerin on the first frame we jibe a burst of 9 topper quality jpegs at 4.7fps with the image stabilization set to 1 (horizontal and unbent stabilization). With the stabilisation turned off, that increased to an impressive 6.2 FPS.
The E-PL3's newly planned 12.3 Megapixel Four Thirds sensor produces 4:3 images with a utmost size of 4032 x 3024 pixels. Images give the sack be saved as Birthday suit data files or as compressed JPEGs at one of two condensation settings. Better quality JPEGs have a file size of between 4 and 6MB. The ISO sensitivity ranges from 200 to 12800 ISO and the shutter speed rove is from 60 seconds to 1/4000.
To see how the prize of the Olympus Pen E-PL3 measures-functioning in practice, take a reckon at our real-life resolution and high ISO noise results pages, browsing the sample images picture gallery, surgery skip to the chase and head trabeated for our verdict.
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Olympus E-PL3
Source: https://www.cameralabs.com/olympus_e-pl3/
