Key features / what's new / technology

The E-PL1 is meant to be a simplified PEN but some of its features suggest otherwise. It has a fairly innovative, easy-to-use, results orientated guide mode called Live Guide:

Live Guide lets you influence the cameras iAuto mode by choosing one of five properties of the image you want to change.	For instance, selecting 'Brightness' effectively gives a results-focused way of adjusting exposure compensation.
The Brightness option is unique in giving more than a simple more/less slider. Here it allows you to adjust the top and tail-ends of the tone curve to brighten or darken the highlights or shadows.	Finally there's a 'Photo tips' section that offers advice for shooting different subjects, from kids to food and pets. (Kitten not included)

The user interface is the main area in which the camera's been reined in: it loses both of the control dials that feature on the earlier PEN models. The result is that you become much more aware of how modal the control system is - the first press of the four-way controller enters a mode, which remains engaged until you press the 'OK' button. (This was the case with many settings on the E-P1/EP-2 but, crucially, not the main shooting parameters, which were directly controlled with the dials).

There are nice additions, though. Adding a separate magnification button offers two great benefits: not only does it make it simple to jump into and out of magnified live view when using manual focus lenses, it also resolves an inconsistency in the Olympus user interface. Until now, magnified live view was one of the live view display modes and the only one in which the function of the controls changed. By making it a separate mode that is toggled on and off using its own button, it is much more apparent that you're in a different mode, meaning it's not so much of a surprise when the OK button zooms in, rather than bringing up the function menu or Super control panel.

Four key shooting settings are accessed via the four-way controller - exposure compensation, flash control, drive mode and AF point.	All these options engage separate modes that then tie-up the four-way controller until you press the OK button again. This is AF-point selection.
Other settings are accessed by pressing the OK button to enter the icon-based function menu. This allows settings to be selected but you have to go into the main menus to fine tune any of their settings.	This fairly standard, compact camera-like modal arrangement becomes increasingly awkward as the level of manual control increases. You have to re-position your hands, press the up button to enter the settings adjust mode.
For instance, here, in Manual exposure mode, onscreen indicators show that you have to press upwards on the four-way controller to change the settings....	Once this settings changing mode is engaged, the up and down arrows change shutter speed while left and right change aperture. Pressing 'OK' confirms the choice.
Magnified live view mode gains its own (easily accessed) button, making it quick to check fine focus with manual focus lenses. This acts as a toggle - pressing a second time returns to the normal display. Unfortunately though, you still can't activate the IS in magnified view, to aid focusing long lenses.	The level of magnification can be easily changed right up to 14x but, most importantly, it's now easy to escape to allow one final check of composition before you fire the shutter.
The iEnhance picture mode (fixed in iAuto mode) boosts saturation. Its effect can be adjusted (in 3 levels) in all other modes. Early impressions support toning it down.	There are 6 art filters, 5 of them shared with the E-P2 (the new one's called 'Gentle Sepia'). All can be previewed live but sap the refresh rate and battery to varying extents.

Advanced options

However, not everything on the E-PL1 has been cut back - in some respects the E-PL1 is a more highly specified camera than the models it's intended to sit below.

The biggest difference in specification between the previous E-P models and the L1 is the addition of an internal flash. This can be used to remotely control the FL-36R and FL-50R flashguns.	There's also a direct access button for movie recording. The Fn and REC buttons can be configured in the 'Buttons' setion of the custom setting menu - getting the Fn button to behave as AEL/AFL seemed most obvious to us.
The E-PL1 has the same EVF/accessory port as the E-P2. This can be used to connect a series of accessories, including the SEMA-1 external stereo mic kit	It also means the E-PL1 can make use of the excellent optional VF-2 electronic viewfinder.

And, although there are many beginner-friendly touches to the E-PL1's interface, it contains the frankly implausible level of customization that has become standard on Olympus DSLRs as far back as the top-end E-3. These options are hidden by default but can be accessed by switching on the custom settings menu from the setup menu. At this point you gain a 62-option menu separated into ten sections. It will take at least an evening with the manual (or the menus section of out full review when we get to that point), to find out all that's in there, but it allows an unbelievable level of customization.

The custom settings menu is hidden by default (and isn't for the faint-hearted), but can be accessed by switching it on in the setup menu.	Once engaged an additional 62 options become available, arranged in 10 groups. These allow customization of just about every aspect of the camera's behavior.
By default the camera uses a compact-camera-style series of on-screen icons to represent and change settings	Delving around in the custom settings menu allows this to be swapped for the Super Control Panel interactive settings display familiar from Olympus DSLRs.
The custom settings menu allows you to engage all sorts of interesting settings, including a live depiction of over- and under-exposed areas.	The thresholds at which the camera declares an area to have 'clipped' can also be defined.