Olympus E-PM2 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5 II Lens, 16MP, 3" Touch LCD, Full 1080i HD Movie, White

2013-01-15T19:00:00

My wife and I purchased the E-PM2 as a Christmas present to each other in early December. We had seen the commercial on TV, and we investigated further. Everything we read was good. We decided to purchase strongly based on our history with both Olympus film and digital SLRs. We didn't open the package until Christmas morning. After reading the very limited instruction book, which allowed me to set the basic system up. It then advised to just shoot iAuto until I was familiar with the camera operations. All I have to do is push several buttons and the camera takes over, but I digress. There were several references to a Super Control Panel, but absolutely, no instructions as to where it could be accessed. I also learned the the "Semi-Complete" Instruction Book was located on the accompanying CD. For me that meant sitting at my computer reading a manual, so I can learn to use the more interesting camera operations. I chose to go to an office supply store to have the book printed and bound, so I could sit anywhere reading the manual with the camera actually in my hands while learning. After three days of reading the manual, I finally had to call Olympus Technical Support to get an answer as to how to access the previously mentioned Super Control Panel. It's an area sadly lacking in the basic setup manual. The camera is really very full featured. There are far too many "howevers" for me to give it anywhere near a passing grade. First is the lack of an included optical eye level viewfinder. I have grandchildren and, I find it difficult to follow any action while holding the camera in front of my face effectively blinding me to what's happening except through a small image. The touch screen is very, very responsive, however, my finger tips are not small enough to easily touch the correct icon on the screen to use it. When I use the swipe function to review images, 3 to 4 frames slide by instead of a single. Fortunately, the function on the manual control wheel functions as expected. Same goes for the zoom function. More often the not the image slides forward or backwards instead of zooming, so I rotate the wheel once again. Shooting in the manual mode is my last and greatest issue. It's the way I use any camera. Once I set all the parameters on the Super Control Panel, it is very difficult to change either the shutter speed or f/stop easily. Even after a great deal of practice using the Control Dial, which is "mini," I can't change either on the first try. I can't say much about the HD capability because I've only tried it once. Still waiting to decide, whether, we want to spend the money to buy yet another connecting cable. The only video I shot was some fireworks at New Years. An optical eye level viewfinder would have helped enormously. I got about 7 seconds of good image out of a total of 47. For the techno geek this might be a fine camera, but to anyone with an extensive photographic background it's little more than a novelty. This is the first Olympus camera we have owned that is a disappointment.

GLENN R.