Was the E-P2 PEN a bit too heavy on your wallet? Good news, Olympus just announced an affordable offering in their line of PEN interchangeable lens cameras. The PEN E-PL1 (what a mouthful) takes most of the E-P2’s features and puts them in a mostly plastic body, throws in a couple of new features like Live Guide to make the camera more beginner friendly and a built-in popup flash.
I will have a preview of the camera ready and online very soon.
Olympus E-PL1 PEN camera
(Micro Four Thirds camera)
- 12 megapixel Live MOS sensor (Micro Four Thirds, 2.0X crop factor)
- Micro Four Thirds lens mount (adapters available for normal Four Thirds and Leica lenses)
- Sensor-shift image stabilizer
- Dust reduction
- 2.7 inch LCD
- Optional electronic viewfinder attaches via hotshoe
- Six Art Filters (photo effects)
- On-board flash
- Live Guide feature for simplified manual control adjustment for beginners
- ISO range of 100 - 3200
- Full manual controls with RAW mode and flash hotshoe
- 3 FPS burst mode
- 720p (1280 x 720 at 30 FPS) movie mode with sound
Optional external microphone accessory; attaches via hotshoe - Takes SD/SDHC memory cards
- Uses a lithium-ion battery
- Available in March for $600 (with 14-42 mm kit lens)
Olympus also announced two new Micro Four Thirds lenses today: the 9 - 18 mm f4.0 - f5.6 ultra-wide angle zoom lens to be available in May for $700 and the new 14 - 150 mm f4.0 - f5.6 all-in-one super zoom lens, which will go for $600 in June.