The Online Photographer

Introduction: In acknowledgment of the old adage "different strokes for different folks," I invited a number of our 2009 contributors to make their own picks for the Camera of the Year. Several of our regulars demurred (Ctein and Carl say they don't keep up with the camera market, and Eamon's been sick—get well soon, EH), but the following people responded. I didn't tell anyone what to pick or what to write; I just let the chips fall where they may. What follows is what we came up with. —Mike the Ed.

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Vlatko Juric-Kokic (a.k.a. Erlik): The Olympus E-P2
During the last couple of years or so I have become more and more interested in...well, not in street photography as such, but in having a camera with me as often as possible. I started by carrying my DSLR with me. That was fun for the first several times. Afterwards, it became cumbersome. I was delighted when Olympus introduced what was then the smallest DSLR, the E-400, but, somehow, it didn't click. The successors were nice but the same thing happened. The Olympus E-620 was much more to my liking and I was sorry to return it after playing with it for a while.

And then, Micro 4/3 appeared. But the first time I saw and handled the Panasonic G1, I immediately bounced off it—I didn't like its DSLR styling a bit. Furthermore, it's a small camera and I cannot hold it properly with its DSLR-like grip. Okay, not for me—let's move on. The Olympus E-P1 was a different matter. I like the styling a lot and, as a longtime Olympus user, I am familiar with the logic behind the menus and adjustments. My initial dislike for its lack of a viewfinder turned into acceptance. The E-P1 was enough of a camera for me to carry around. Still, E-P1 is not the camera of the year for me. No.

Habit is a curious thing. Ever since my (brief) film days long ago, I have been in love with viewfinders, with an ability to see what you'll get without the distractions from which the LCD on the back of a camera suffers. E-P1, however useful and usable as a carry-around camera, doesn't have a viewfinder. But its successor, the Olympus E-P2, does, and a very good viewfinder at that.

The viewfinder wouldn't be enough for me to like the E-P2. I like the fact I can carry it around without problems. I also like the fact that it doesn't become the center of attention and even less a cause for consternation in people in the street like big black DSLRs often are. On the other hand, I also like the fact that you can put almost any lens ever produced on the E-P2, should the occasion need it: from the big 4/3 tele-lenses to tiny cine primes. While the way it behaves is closer to compacts than to fast DSLRs, with proper adjustments and camera handling it becomes almost transparent in your hands. That's why the Olympus E-P2 is the Camera of the Year for me.

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John Camp: The Panasonic GH1
My candidate for camera of the year 2009 is the Panasonic GH1, introduced in March 2009, the second camera of the Panasonic Micro 4/3 system. The GH1 is more expensive than the G1, introduced in 2008, and is essentially identical physically—the only changes are those necessary to implement video.

The GH1 is my candidate for two reasons: the quality of the camera itself and its functionality, and the uses to which I put cameras.

My photographic background has been in photojournalism, and some scholarly work in archaeology. I value ruggedness, light weight, emulsion or sensor speed, flexibility, and a final product that produces slightly better quality than newspapers, scholarly magazines, or mass-market magazines really need. I don't need super-quality prints or files. An emphasis on getting something, rather than on perfection, involves trade-offs. If the quality level I need, on a scale of 1 to 10, is a 6, and a Nikon D3x is a 9+, and the Panasonic is a 7, I take the Panasonic—because it's half the weight and has all the quality I can use.

Cost is also an issue: I have more faith in a good camera with several backups than a superb camera with no backups.

In Iraq, two years ago, I took a Nikon D3 with four lenses, a laptop, and a satellite phone. I also carried a helmet, thirty pounds of body armor, water and munchies. I was only there for a month, but by the time I left I would have killed for a GH1 system.

The GH1 actually has more functionality than the D3, though the high-ISO quality is not as good. It has what I find to be an extremely useful flexible LCD; a decent built-in viewfinder; decent lenses; and very light weight. It has video, with continuous autofocus with its kit lens.

Full-frame DSLRs are now literally as big and heavy as some of the Speed Graphic cameras that were displaced by Leicas in the forties and fifties, and I think the DSLRs will be displaced by Micro 4/3-like systems for the same reasons, having to do with "good enough" quality and ease of use.

Thom Hogan, on his website, has recently listed sale volumes for cameras last year. In the interchangeable-lens category, Panasonic had suddenly jumped to third place, behind Canon and Nikon, taking 8.5% of the interchangeable lens market in the year and a half since its first model appeared.

I think they are the cameras of the future for many working photographers.

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Ken Tanaka: The Leica M9
Casting an indisputable nomination for "Camera of the Year" is a fool’s errand. We’re being drenched in a monsoon of fabulous cameras.

That caveat aside, however, I must nominate the Leica M9 as Camera of the Year for 2009.

The M9 finally delivers the "digital M" that enthusiasts have dreamt of for many years. While Leica’s first digital rangefinder, the M8, satisfied part of that dream in 2006, it always seemed like more of a proof-of-concept than a final product. It was a good prototype but was obviously rushed to market and suffered from design and manufacturing deficiencies. Leica eventually remedied many of these issues when it introduced the M8.2 two years later. But as good as the M8.2 was, it was still version 0.9 of the digital M.

On September 9, 2009 (09/09/09), amidst great fanfare, Leica introduced the the M9, definitely the 1.0 version of the digital M. The M9 is an excellent embodiment of the product concept featuring meaningful advancements beyond the M8.2, he most significant of which is the camera's new full-frame sensor. Finally all those glorious M lenses can produce their designed focal length coverages on a digital camera!

But the quality of the M9 is only part of the motivation behind my choice. Every M9 actually represents a trophy won by Leica's engineers after many battles against the "can’t" mentality of it managements. It wasn't long ago that Leica's management (du jour) proclaimed that a digital rangefinder couldn't be made. After Epson's R-D1 proved that false (2004) and Leica introduced the M8 in 2006, the next management team moaned that they couldn't make a full-frame rangefinder, and that such cameras would always require external infrared filters. Having since jettisoned that management, the Leica engineers persevered to ultimately overcome both of those final "can't" barriers to deliver today's excellent M9.

Certainly the M9's limited functional range and high price will always restrict its appeal. But it's truly a marvelous picture-taking machine that represents tremendous long-odds accomplishments by the devoted core of a small German camera company shouldering a heavy heritage. If that doesn't merit recognition today I don't know what does.

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Gordon Lewis: The Pentax K-x
I was fortunate enough to attend the press reception in New York where Pentax announced the launch of the K-x. To be honest, I was only moderately impressed. I doubted that the idea of red, white or blue camera bodies would catch on. The specs looked nice, but what about image quality? It felt pretty good in my hands, but it was no K-7. To my mind the only people who would be interested would be folks stepping up from a point-and-shoot or an older film camera. For this audience the price was right: around $650 with a darned good 18–55mm kit zoom.

Apparently the product managers at Pentax were smarter than I thought. The K-x has been selling like hotcakes—red, white, blue or black hotcakes at that. If you combine all four variations you discover that the K-x has become one of Amazon's top sellers in the DSLR category. And why not? Camera reviewers have been uniformly positive about its image quality and low-light abilities. Some Pentax owners have even gone so far as to suggest that Pentax should introduce a revised K-7 with a K-x sensor. Combine all this with the fact that Pentax K-x kits with a body, 18–55mm zoom, and 50–200mm zoom are now selling for $639 at B&H Photo, and you understand why the K-x is a solid contender for Camera of the Year. It put Pentax back in the game and gave it name recognition among the people where it matters most: the young and the uninitiated; the photographers who could not care less about Pentax's history, but who may very well help Pentax make history.

Jenna B., age 13. An excellent student athlete, her school's colors are red and black

In action: her father says she's been "shooting like crazy" since Christmas

The shot she was taking in the picture above this one

Geoff Wittig: The Panasonic GF1
Camera of the year? To me it seems fairly obvious. Sure, the Nikon D3x pushed the envelope with best-yet resolution and image quality. The Canon 7D brought pro-caliber frame rates and build quality to the enthusiast D-SLR. The Nikon D3S goes further than ever into high ISO "available darkness." But these cameras merely offer a little more of what we already had.

The Panasonic GF1 is a different kind of camera altogether, one that changes the game. It provides 95% of what most DSLR users will ever need, in a far smaller and more compact package.

Smart commentators and writers have been opining for several years now that digital technology offers the possibility of starting from a clean sheet of paper, escaping the design staightjacket imposed by the traditional pentaprism/ pentamirror layout. This appears to be the first camera to fully exploit the opportunity.

I shoot almost exclusively with a Canon "1" series DSLR and a bunch of L lenses; but I'm sorely tempted to pick up a GF1 and a couple of tiny lenses to have with me all the time. "The best camera is the one you have with you"; and for most things, this tiny interchangeable-lens model is good enough.

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Mike Johnston: The Sony A850
I know some people will find my choice curious, given that I recently bought a Panasonic GF1. So first let me say that no, I'm not disappointed with my GF1!

I've been using a Sony A850 for about a month now, courtesy of B&H Photo. When B&H approached me and asked if I'd like to test any camera they had in stock—which effectively means just about any new camera that exists—I didn't need any time to decide.

The Sony A850 should be thought of as a medium-format digital camera in a conventional SLR form-factor body. It's perfectly adequate as an all-around SLR, but there's one area in which it excels. Above, I'm holding a 20 x 30" test print made from one of my A900 test shots by Ctein on his wide-format printer (bigger than I can make at home). I think the quality is about what I might expect from a 35mm color negative enlarged to 6x9". Ctein says he thinks it looks better than a 20x30 print from 6x7 cm film. I just can't see a 30"-wide print needing to look better, for almost any conceivable application. This is where the A900 and its cheaper brother, the A850,  really come into their own. If you want or need to make really big prints, even occasionally, and you don't want to spend a fortune for the capability, then this is the axe for you.

I love using this camera, which feels well-sorted, well-balanced, and well set up to me. The body-integral IS and the generous viewfinder are the camera's best physical features; the lack of lenses in the lineup the most serious problem. (Just make sure you can get the lenses you need before buying.) The latter is counterbalanced by the A850's impressive affordability. For $2,000, you can't buy a camera from anyone that will do what this one will. It's the Camera of the Year in my eyes.

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Edward Taylor: The Panasonic GF1
My vote for Camera of the Year 2009 goes to the Panasonic GF1. This camera represents a new format that supports small size and interchangeable lenses. Because of its relatively large sensor, it produces high quality images. The GF1 is also a responsive camera with good ergonomics, quick focusing and almost no shutter lag. The combination of decent high ISO performance and a very nice ƒ/1.7 lens allows for low light photography. It also has a built-in flash and an optional viewfinder. The way the camera handles is what sets it apart from the other large-sensor compacts. I have cameras that are quicker and produce better images than the GF1, including a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 1Ds Mark III, but most of my photos are taken with the GF1, which I always have with me. I no longer feel that the small size of my carry-around camera compromises my images to any significant degree. The GF1 could be improved with an articulating viewfinder, in-body image stabilization, 1080P video and a few other things, but it is my favorite camera just the way it is.

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Oren Grad: The Fujifilm GF670 / Voigtlaender Bessa III
It feels a little silly to herald the Voigtländer Bessa III as the best new film camera of 2009. Aside from toy cameras or custom-made view cameras based on well-established designs, I can’t think of another. "Best one of one!" sounds more like parody than praise.

And, truth be told, this Cosina-built camera isn’t especially innovative either. Folding roll-film cameras were ubiquitous through the middle of the last century. But there have been modern incarnations as well, in the Fuji GS645 and the Plaubel Makina 6x7 cameras of the 1970s and '80s. Arguably the Mamiya 6 deserves a mention too, because its collapsing lens mount made it handy to stow in small cases designed for 35mm SLRs.

But groundbreaking or not, the GF670 / Bessa III is a really nice camera. Despite the folding design, it has all the modern conveniences you'd expect in a late-model AE rangefinder camera save for a wind lever (it's knob-only) and a self-timer. The camera weighs only 1000g, which is lightweight for the format and less than a mid-range DSLR with a small prime lens. Format can be changed between 6x6 and 6x7 cm, with a film-plane mask and parallax-compensating finder frames that auto-switch to match the format selection. The 80mm focal length of the fixed lens is well chosen, too—it's dead normal for 6x6 and a handy semi-wide for 6x7.

As always with folding cameras, handling may or may not be your cup of tea. The folding mechanism requires a bit of care, and some users will find that there's not quite enough room for the right-hand grip with the sideways-opening bed folded out. As if in compensation, though, early user reports point to three great strengths: the lens is first-rate; the combined viewfinder/rangefinder is wonderfully bright and crisp; and the electronically-controlled leaf shutter is virtually silent. And although the GF670 is not cheap, it's still comparatively a good value—its street price of around $2250 in the US and ¥218,000 in Japan is actually considerably less than that of its only real competitor, the Mamiya 7II with 80mm lens.

Put it all together and you’ve got something worth celebrating—a class-unto-itself Camera of the Year.

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Post Clarification by Mike: Seems there might be a little confusion about this post. This is not the "TOP Ten Cameras" list, which last year was a countdown (with #2 left blank) and which this year I've been procrastinating hard on. This is the "Camera of the Year" post, which last year was just one camera. Different species of post, although perhaps those are the kinds of distinctions that matter more to those who put the posts together than to the those who read them. Sorry for any inadvertent mild confusion.

Cat Clarification by Bob the father of Jenna: Seems a few readers are onto the cat photo not being the exact photo as seen in my shot of Jenna in action—which is true. As a clarification, Jenna's cat photo was from the cat photo session. Jenna followed the cat around the house for a long time taking countless shots. Regardless of the exact ear position the shot demonstrates that the K-x is an excellent camera in the hands of a 13-year-old in her first week of shooting with a DSLR. By the way, the cat is not drugged. The cat’s name is Pudgie. He always looks like that and never runs from people. Pudgie can open a bread box and eat a loaf of bread if not properly supervised.

Mulberry Street at Prince Street

By Eamon Hickey

I'm sure this would be true for millions of photographers, but somebody who's good at information design could draw a nice diagram that plots the history of my photographic interests against the size of the camera I want to carry. When I was fascinated by wildlife, I was happy to lug 20 lbs. of gear hither and yon. I once spent several successive days making pre-dawn hikes to a gray fox den with a 7-lb. 500mm ƒ/4 lens and a ridiculous camouflage blind. I never got more than a fleeting glimpse of the furry demons, who clearly knew exactly where I was and—this could be my imagination—amused themselves with jokes about my chiropractic bills. After three or four days of this, I complained to my then-wife that shore birds were so much easier to photograph, at which she noted, "Hence the phrase is not 'smart as an egret'" without even looking up from her book.

Years later, sans sarcastic sidekick, I moved to New York City and became mostly interested in shooting the people and things I see as I make my way around the city. I've missed a lot of amazing photographs because I didn't have a camera with me. Two twenty-something furniture delivery muscle-heads, feet on the bumper of their van, hands on the pavement, doing incline push-ups in jammed mid-morning traffic on Broadway. Ten thousand skateboarders streaming, like a river made of hipster sneakers and wispy facial hair, the wrong way up 2nd Ave., protesting new regulations and freezing traffic and street life as far as the eye could see. A bushy-mustachioed man in his 60s in well-worn brown oxfords and a puffy down jacket with the hood drawn, looking for all the world like somebody's kindly grandpa, mesmerizing a 1 a.m. crowd with a spontaneous jig, danced to the wild drumming of a subway platform busker. I don't have those pictures. I got a life to lead and a job to do, and carrying an obtrusive SLR over my shoulder everywhere I go just doesn't happen.

So for me, the essential question about the E-P1 was: is it really more portable, in a meaningful way, than other high-quality, responsive digital cameras? Could I carry it easily—and forget about it when not in use—for hours, and then get the shot when I needed it?

My approach was to use it as if the answer were 'yes' and see how it worked. I used only the 17mm lens and simply slipped the camera in my coat pocket or messenger bag whenever I left my apartment. I tried to make it an integral part of my everyday life, like my cell phone.

Unsurprisingly, it's not quite as unobtrusive as a cell phone or iPod. It's not so portable that you would slip it into the inside pocket of your tuxedo on your way to the symphony or into your hip pocket while you get your nightclub boogie on. But it's unquestionably a big step closer to the carry-everywhere ideal than any seriously capable digital camera I've used before. It does go easily in and out of a coat pocket in a way that no DSLR with moderate wide lens setup does. There were many times that I would forget it was in my pocket for several hours while I ran errands. It was an unnoticeable addition to my messenger bag on my way to and from my office.

Think Coffee, Bowery Street near Houston

My dream camera would have the E-P1's sufficiency in responsiveness and controllability (or better) but would be about 15% smaller and weigh, with lens, 5–6 ounces (140–170g) less than the E-P1 with 17mm. Although I often forgot it was in my coat pocket, after several hours the E-P1's weight could begin to be a modest bother. (For reference, I'm 6'2" (188cm) tall and about 170 lbs. (77kg).) I'd actually like to see a plastic-fantastic version of this camera—without compromising responsiveness or controllability, please, Olympus! That's right, bring on the plastic, I say, if it'll shave a few ounces.

Two years ago, I bought a used Pentax *ist DS and equipped it with the really lovely little Pentax 21mm ƒ/3.2 DA Limited pancake lens. I got it because, at the time, it was the smallest package available that combined good responsiveness, good image quality, and a moderately wide-angle focal length. I don't think there's a DSLR/moderate wide lens setup that's any smaller even now. The E-P1, with the 17mm lens, is without question a lot easier to carry around. Easily coat-pocketable is a different class of thing.

And on the unobtrusiveness topic, I'll add that like many others I found that, as with a point-and-shoot digicam, using the E-P1 doesn't intrude on your subjects' consciousness as much as an SLR, or even a rangefinder, held to the eye. This is a way in which LCD viewing and so-called "arm's length" framing can be an advantage. For unobtrusive shooting I find that holding the camera at chest level or close to waist-level (my elbows are bent, so it's not really "arm's length") and viewing with the LCD draws less attention from strangers than eye-level framing, especially with a big black SLR and zoom lens. Many folks claim that holding a camera at eye-level is more stable, and they tend to state the claim as if this were something that Newton proved along with the Law of Gravity. As I understand it, Newton didn't even address the issue. If you give it some attention, I think it's easy to hold a camera steady even when away from your eye. I am, in short, glad to frame with the LCD—I think it helps me more often than not.

You'll notice I've said nothing about image quality. That's intentional. The file quality of the E-P1's images is, as I knew it would be, easily sufficient—my favorite word again—for what I'm asking it to do. Which is, more or less, to make images of street and people subjects with reasonably good tonal range and quality at ISOs up to 800 or so that I can enlarge to 20 inches (50cm) wide at the most (very rarely), and images at ISO 1600 that I can enlarge to 12–14 inches (30–35cm) wide (again, rarely). Every point-and-shoot digicam I've used is not sufficient as one gets closer to the extremes of my parameters (ISO and enlargement). I also have not commented on the 17mm lens, which seems to have already acquired a mediocre reputation. It, again, is easily sufficient for me.

Chrystie Street at Grand Street

There definitely are types of photographs that gain meaningful artistic power from increasing technical perfection, but many, many, many pictures do not, or at least not much. The things I'm interested in making pictures of fall mostly into the latter category, and I simply don't care about 1 or 2% differences in distortion or 50 line pairs of resolution this way or that. The E-P1's file quality hits a good middle ground for me.

I also haven't mentioned the Panasonic GF-1. I haven't used it. I strongly suspect that it would please me quite sufficiently, too. It evidently possesses an at least equally nice combination of portability, responsiveness, controllability, and image quality.

Ultimately, this is all boils down to the wonderful, if inexplicably obscure science of measuring happiness minutes that I mentioned in my first E-P1 post. This camera is not perfect. Unquestionably, there will be later versions, from Olympus and others, that will be better. It's not quite a carry-everywhere camera. But it gives me something I couldn't get before—namely, it will significantly extend the times and places wherein I have a high quality camera with me. Because of that, it's the first camera I've used in quite some time that I'm very sure would significantly increase my happiness minute supply.

So now I just gotta figure out when and how to get one.

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Featured Comment by Miłosz Bolechowski: "Very 'sufficient' review. :-)"

Featured Comment by Timo: "Guess I missed Eamon by just a few minutes; said golfer was down to his last juice box."

By Eamon Hickey

So as stated yesterday in Part I of these comments on the Olympus E-P1, in my opinion the camera has excellent controllability—all important exposure and focus controls are directly accessible and configurable.

What about responsiveness? It's not perfect—I'll mention some suggested improvements below—but it's sufficient. I think "sufficient" is a very helpful concept to embrace for photographers who lack trust funds. It's an equally amiable notion for photographers who lack cast-iron spines.

The E-P1's autofocus has taken a lot of flak. I would characterize it as middling, not counting follow-focusing of moving subjects, which it's not much good for. In practice, this is a relatively small issue for me, given the types of shooting for which I would use a camera like the E-P1. Even when shooting street shots of the run of everyday life, I'm usually pre-focusing or anticipating a subject's future position or waiting a few seconds, camera at ready, for an interesting moment. Some of this is a kind of anticipatory shooting and focusing, and it can often be done very unobtrusively by targeting any handy object located at the proper distance, then recomposing. The E-P1's AF system, and its manual focus system, work fine for these various methods.

One caveat to the above: unless you're using older manual focus lenses on the camera via an adapter, there's no really good way to do zone (a.k.a. scale) focusing with the E-P1. That's a disappointment. As I said, you can pre-focus the lens at any distance by picking an object at that distance and focusing. I often did just that, following my usual habit of setting the focus for about 8–10 feet (~3m) as I walk around. That seems to me like the most likely distance at which I might ever get a good raise-the-camera-and-shoot-instantly grab shot. You can also set a custom function to disable the camera's default behavior of re-focusing to infinity every time the camera is turned off or on, which is a small help. But none of this is classic zone focusing where you can set the focus distance using a scale on the lens, which you do in the split second that it takes to raise the camera to your eye or aim it from your hip according to classical decisive-moment doctrine. It should be easy for Olympus to create a feature where the current lens focus distance is displayed on the LCD, along with a depth-of-field indication or scale. This would allow easy zone focusing in the classic style and should be a no-brainer on future cameras (or in future firmware updates).

If you pre-focus or focus manually, the shutter response is similar to an entry- or mid-level DSLR on manual or pre-focus. Again, quite sufficient—and notably better than most compact digicams I've used. This does, however, bring me to my one caveat about the desirability of the electronic viewing design. Judging the moment to trip the shutter by viewing through the LCD introduces a slight additional delay to the cycle that can roughly be described as decisive moment is seen > photographer pushes button > picture happens. In my timing tests, there's a slight delay added by the LCD—about 1/10th of a second compared to viewing through the optional optical viewfinder (or simply peering at the subject over the top of the camera). You can learn to compensate, at least partially, for any delay that's consistent—and this one seems consistent—but still, all things considered, shorter shutter lags are better than longer ones. I'm hoping to see LCD/EVF delay reduced further as these technologies develop.

I had no trouble with the E-P1's supposedly deficient LCD resolution (230,000 dots). I found it easy to compose my pictures and to judge manual focus. I do wish that the manual focus assist function, which magnifies the central part of the scene either 7X or 10X to help with focus judgment, had one additional setting. As it currently works, the entire LCD area is magnified, which helps with focusing but you lose your view of the overall composition. I'd like an additional option to have only the center portion of the LCD show a magnified view, while the rest of the LCD stays at normal magnification so you can still get a decent sense of your composition.

I was not shooting on any particularly sunny days, so I can't give an opinion on how well the LCD works in direct sun, but I've shot in those conditions with many, many compact digicams, so I know that, for me, it's not a deal-breaker either way. I'll say more about the issue of "arm's length" LCD shooting in Part III of this mishmash.

Control responsiveness is also perfectly sufficient—i.e. the speed with which the two thumbwheels and all the push-buttons do their thing is just fine. No complaints in use.

Avenue A at 10th St.

I will mention two other things I'd like to see improved. The camera's power-on-to-first-shot time is a fairly long 2.7 seconds. I imagine there's dust-shaking and who knows what else going on in that time, and it would not normally be much of a concern to me, if it weren't for my second complaint: you can't leave the camera powered on when it's going in and out of your coat pocket (or holster bag or whatever). Why? Because, as many others have noted, the cameras controls are very easy to inadvertently adjust. Olympus could solve this with a sliding lock switch that disables all the buttons and wheels. As it stands—at least as far as I can tell—you have to turn the camera off when you stow it in your pocket, which means you have to endure the 2.7 second delay when you yank it out to get that fleeting shot of Elvis ducking into a taxi on West 57th Street. If anyone has a solution for this that I overlooked, I'd be grateful to hear it.

Those complaints stated, in the real world of walking around and shooting, at least for me, it would be relatively rare to miss a shot because of them. They do not, in other words, destroy the camera's sufficiency.

In the third and final installment of my E-P1 comments, tomorrow, I'll talk, in the best self-help tradition, about my happiness and the history of my unmet needs. It'll be fun, at least for me.

Eamon

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Moonstruck Diner at 2nd Ave.

By Eamon Hickey

I stole part of the title of this post from a magazine article* that I recently read about one of the founders of "scientific management" theory, Lillian Gilbreth, who once referred to a metric that she dubbed "happiness minutes." The point of her theories and methods, she explained, was to give people more of them. It's science, you see.

Gilbreth's tragically overlooked breakthrough will guide what follows, over three posts. I'd like to accumulate some additional happiness minutes; I emerged from the factory with a reasonably sensitive built-in meter to measure them; and I was really only interested in whether the Olympus E-P1 would increase my supply. So this won't be a formal, comparative review of the E-P1. Instead, it'll be a highly subjective, entirely random rundown of things I liked, disliked, or noticed while using it.

The camera was loaned to me by the PR folks at Olympus Imaging here in the U.S. (for three weeks; it's now back home in Pennsylvania) and came with the Olympus 14–42mm ƒ/3.5–ƒ/5.6 M.Zuiko lens, the 17mm ƒ/2.8 M.Zuiko pancake lens with its companion VF-1 optical viewfinder, and the FL-14 flash. I never used, and therefore having nothing useful to say about, the 14–42mm lens or the flash, and I barely tried the viewfinder because, well, I'm not interested in shooting with those gadgets. My interest in the E-P1 is centered on, in order of importance: portability, responsiveness, controllability, and image quality. Oh, and portability. All in the service of knockabout street, travel, and informal people photography.

The portability of the E-P1 did indeed please me, but I'll talk more about that in a later post. After the portability, the next biggest thing that stood out to me is the excellent usability of a camera that combines a live histogram with responsive advanced controls. It got me to switch from manual to automatic exposure control (after 25 years), and, for me, is a modest but important step forward in quick and accurate shooting. Here's the way I set it up:

Aperture-priority exposure mode with the main command dial set to control aperture. Sub-command dial set to enable instant exposure compensation. LCD set to display a live histogram. Manual focus but with the AEL button set to activate autofocus. Finally, auto ISO with a maximum limit of ISO 800, so the camera will freely adjust the ISO between 100 and 800, according to available light levels.

Why is this cool? Because I have the speed benefits of automatic exposure control, with, obviously, direct control of the aperture, which is critical to me. The live histogram gives me a deeply informative, real-time meter check of the camera's autoexposure decision that I can intelligently interpret much faster than any in-camera reflective metering system I've ever used, from multi-pattern to spot. And with the sub-command dial set for instant exposure compensation, I can override the automatic exposure instantly and quite precisely, from shot to shot, in even the most complex lighting. Then, for focus, I have simultaneous instant access to manual or auto, whichever is best suited to the shot. And—this is crucial—the camera will not refocus every time I press the shutter release. (Separating AF activation from the shutter release is the first thing I do on any camera that I'm using.)

For me, the live histogram is the key addition. It really improves the exposure part of this circus. Compared to analyzing a spot or center-weighted meter reading, using the live histogram lets me much more quickly see (don't have to think much) whether the autoexposure decision is a good one, and instantly override it if need be. I ended up concluding that an electronic viewing camera with the right controls and a live histogram option, compared to traditional optical viewfinder designs, makes it faster and easier to reliably find and set the best exposure. (I can hear the OVF-or-die crowd denouncing my heresy as I write.)

Bowery at Grand

Using the E-P1 this way, walking around New York City slipping it in and out of a coat pocket as needed, I could shoot very quickly, yet with exacting control of exposure and focus when I needed it (one doesn't always need it). Again, good responsiveness and the right camera controls are crucial—instantly accessible aperture (or shutter speed) and autoexposure comp control, plus AF activation separated from the shutter release, are mandatory. You need everything working together, which is where most (all?) point-and-shoot digicams—some of which have live histograms—fall short.

More on the experience of using the camera, and a caveat to my endorsement of EVIL** in Part II, which will appear tomorrow morning.

A note on the illustrations: All were post-processed to one extent or another; please don't make any judgments about out-of-camera color, tonality etc. from them.  I'm leaving out technical and shooting details, but if you want to know, just ask in the comments. I will say that the "Moonstruck Diner" shot was done at ISO 1600, and I would happily print it up to 12 or 14 inches (30–35cm) wide.

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