My Olympus PEN E-P3

I purchased this PEN E-P3 just a few days ago, to add it to my collection of Olympus PEN cameras. As I mentioned in my previous post, I now have all the PEN models except the PEN-F.

I love PEN cameras because they are the smallest full-featured cameras out there. Yes, there are smaller cameras, but they have smaller sensors. And there are small cameras with bigger sensors, but they’re not as small as these cameras, and you have to deal with big, heavy lenses. The PEN cameras are just perfect. The sensor is big enough to allow for great resolution without squeezing pixels too close together and small enough to allow for small, lightweight lenses.

PENs are almost as full-featured as the bigger OM-D cameras (which I also love and which have their own charm, purpose and amazing capabilities), but the PENs are small and light and easy to carry, so they’re perfect for traveling light or for an all-day photo shoot in the studio, when you have to move around and hold the camera at all sorts of angles in order to get that perfect photo. That was and is the Olympus MFT promise: small, lightweight gear and superb image quality. This is why my PEN E-P5 has become my main camera, by the way. I love using it in my studio and I use it everywhere else as well. This is also why I wanted to collect all of the PEN models. I wanted to see their evolution firsthand, from the standard-setting E-P1 to the E-P5 and the PEN-F.

I bought my E-P3 second-hand and there were some scratches to the underside of the camera. I also discovered after the purchase that the IBIS wasn’t working. I talked with the seller about it and it wasn’t malice. The fellow was a beginner and didn’t even know how to adjust the IBIS, much less that it wasn’t working. I guess at some point, the mechanism either broke or got stuck, so I packed it up yesterday and sent it in to one of the Olympus Service Centers in Eastern Europe to have it fixed. I look forward to getting it back in full working order and using from time to time, as I also use my other PEN cameras. They’re not just collectibles to me. They’re also working cameras and it’s important to me that each and every one of them is fully operational.

Before I sent this camera in for service, I mounted the 25mm f1.8 lens on it, plus my newly-arrived MCON-P02 Macro Converter (which I definitely recommend) and went into our garden to take photographs. I wanted to see how the E-P3 had improved upon the E-P2 in image quality. And it definitely has! The color gradation is better and so are the details. It has the same resolution as the E-P2 (12.2 megapixels) but the images are better and there’s less noise.

I do wish I had adopted the PEN system earlier, back in 2010 when I reviewed the E-P2. I think I’d have been pretty happy working with PEN cameras all these years and maybe also getting an OM-D camera. While I can’t change the past, I am working with Olympus gear now and I am very happy with it.

Enjoy the photographs!

Reviews

My Olympus PEN E-P1

Several days ago, I purchased a PEN E-P1. I’ve been thinking about a number of years of collecting all the digital PEN cameras that Olympus has made. I’m not referring to the PL (Pen Lite) or PM (Pen Mini) camera lines, which were launched alongside the regular PEN cameras in an effort to provide lower-cost alternatives for consumers with lower budgets. I’ve wanted to own all of the regular, full-featured PEN cameras, of which there are five models: E-P1, E-P2, E-P3, E-P5 and PEN-F. So when did my love of PEN cameras start? It was when I reviewed the PEN E-P2 back in 2010. I loved that camera and I wanted to have it right there and then, but I was heavily invested in Canon gear at the time. Fast forward to 2018. When I bought the E-P1, I already had the E-P2 and the E-P5 (I also have the first PL model, the E-PL1). Since then, I’ve also purchased the E-P3, so now the only camera left to get for my collection is the PEN-F.

The E-P1 is an important camera. Launched on June 16, 2009, it was the first digital PEN. Fifty years before it came the original PEN, in 1959. Both cameras were revolutionary in their design and their compact size. What Olympus managed to do with the digital PEN was amazing: they managed to give us the features and quality that only came with larger, heavier cameras, in a tiny and light camera body that could be carried in a pocket or a purse. In its time, the E-P1 was the lightest, smallest and most capable camera on the market. It may not have been the best at everything, but it offered image quality that was higher than or comparable to much larger and more expensive cameras with larger sensors. Even today, almost nine years later, when the E-P1 is coupled with a great lens, such as the M.Zuiko 25mm f1.8, it can produce truly beautiful photographs that match quite well the quality of images made with cameras that have full-frame sensors. You’ll see this in the gallery below, which contains photos I’ve taken in our garden with the E-P1 and the 25mm f1.8.

I am fortunate and happy that I was able to build my PEN collection, and that I get to work every day with such great cameras. The PEN E-P5 is my primary camera now, both in the studio and outdoors. I love it. Enjoy the photographs!

A busy little bee visits our sage blossoms

Places

Springtime in our garden

Spring has arrived and that means it’s time for my annual gallery of photographs from our garden. This is the sixth edition mind you, so it has become somewhat of a tradition for me. I hope you have a cup of tea or coffee ready — if you don’t, go get one — because there are 131 photographs for you to see. There’s also something different from previous years: I’ve taken most of the photos with my Olympus gear, particularly with my PEN E-P5 and the new lenses I bought for it. This equipment is so light and so responsive it feels like I’m almost cheating when I use it. And there’s no compromise in image quality. I love it. Enjoy the photographs!

$Fuzzy fractal$

I call it fuzzy because of the fine hairs on the leaves of this developing comfrey plant

$Red-tinged fractal$

A growing evening primrose plant

In our own garden

$A lovely fractal$

These flowers just love to spring up on the garden path instead of sticking to the tended grounds. Also notice the itsy-bitsy spider hiding behind the shrub in the foreground.

Primula and other assorted plants and flowers

A focus stack

A bee gathers pollen from grape hyacinths

A focus stack

The petals on the lower daisy have been partially eaten by a snail

Daisies starting to close their petals for the day

A focus stack

Places

More photos from Dobrogea

Quite a few years ago, I published this gallery of photographs I’d taken in the province of Dobrogea in Romania. I’ve been going through my catalog lately, re-discovering the places I’ve visited and photos I haven’t yet edited, so I thought I’d put together another gallery of photographs for you.

You may know that Dobrogea is thought of as flat place, wide and mostly arrid — great for agriculture — and it certainly is that, but there are some spots in it that can look quite different. Did you know that Dobrogea has mountains and they’re the oldest in Romania (quite possibly some of the oldest in Eastern Europe as well)? They’re so old and worn down by time that they look like hills. You’ll get to see them here, including the biggest one of them, Altantepe.

Enjoy the photos!

Outside the village of Mihail Kogalniceanu, on the road to Constanta. The mountain in the distance is Altantepe. There was a productive gold mine there in the past.

Dobrogea, Romania

An old, old mountain in Dobrogea, worn down by winds and winters.

An old mountain in Dobrogea, Romania.

Lichen growing on a hillside rock in the region of Gura Dobrogei, Romania.

A jet airplane shoots past the moon in plain daylight.

A flowering plant from the nettle family, in spring.

Dobrogea, Romania

Places

A jaunt into the Danube Delta

Years ago, we took a quick day-trip into the Danube Delta which involved some boating (hence, rowing). It was a fun little trip to the edge of the Delta. It was early spring, so the full beauty of the place wasn’t readily apparent, but that also meant that there were no mosquitoes, which was a huge plus for me. Enjoy the photos!