Olympus E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White)

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

The photo taking aspects are excellent as is the image quality up to about ISO 1600. The larger screen is a big plus as is the ability to touch the subject on the screen to have the camera focus on it. Video is easy to start and stop and overall quality of the videos is very good.Where the new camera falls down is in the ability to add a flash or an external microphone. The new flash is no longer built into the camera but used a double connection that is unique to Olympus. For adding an external shotgun type of microphone you need to buy the mic and also the Olympus SEMA-1 adapter for [$] which sits on the hot shoe. You cannot use a mic without the adapter and although the adapter includes a tiny microphone it is not directional so very limited in its use. The SEMA-1 mic adapter also ties up the hot shoe so it cannot be used with either a flash or a LED video light. If video use is important I would pass on this camera and get a camera that has a 3.5mm audio jack to enable use of an external microphone. Image stabilization is poor. Using a 50-150mm lens the stabilization is of no use and a fast minimum 1/250s shutter speed is the only way to get sharp pictures without camera motion blur. In-camera stabilization does not begin to compare to stabilization in the lens as used by Canon and Nikon with their lenses.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Red):

I bought this camera this summer from B&H. I love the camera I owned a olympus E Pl1 and a panasonic GH 2 . I love Olympus beautiful ,rich colors right out if the camera. if you don't mind not having a view finder its a great walking around camera..I choose it over my Nikon most of the time because its so small and easy to handle.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Red):

Tried to take a picture of a caterpillar and camera wouldn't lock focus even when I changed the setting. I checked to see if I was trying to get too close. Found out there wasn't a manual focus on this camera and I really missed my viewfinder so returned this camera and ordered a Olympus E-M5 instead. The few pictures I took were sharp and the color was true.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

Using this as companion to my D800, when I'm not in the mood to carry it, or need something more discrete, as a restaurant dinner.
Great sharpness in daylight, cool looks.
Absurd fast auto focus.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

I plan to use this in an underwater housing which I have not done yet. Bought it because it is very compact and will make for a compact UW camera with housing which is what I want. Used it on land on a trip to NYC and it worked great. Just as good as my semi-pro SLRs. The default set-ups are for point and shot photographers but after spend some time weeding through the not bad sub menus I set it up to work just like my SLR. I love this thing because it is so compact I can now have a really good camera that fits in your pocket. To me if there is a flaw it is me getting use to it being as small and light as it is. I started with Canon F1s with motor drives and tend to like something a little larger normally but I do not miss the weight. My 12 pound Cannon get heavier every day I live. Getting use to the size will not be that bad.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

Very good dinamic range,color match to original,clear picture,fast focus.Flash is working great.Vaiting for adapter to try my nikon lenses for fun.B&H is good place to shop!

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

As an avid hiker, I was looking for a solidly built camera with SLR quality and control, with point and shoot size. The E-PL3 is perfect! The camera has a very high quality feel to it. The lens control is very smooth. Other micro 4/3 lenses i've played with felt cheap. The control functions for manual settings are a breeze. After playing with my new camera for only a few days, I was switching over to manual mode and taking beautiful photographs. The iAuto mode is very nice for someone who just wants to turn the camera on and start clicking away.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

we really love this camera. It's perfect for every situation!
The lenses are easy to change. Setting and menu are easy to navigate trough.
I highly recommend this camera

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This camera is amazing for such a small size. The build quality is outstanding! It feels great in your hand. I like how much you can customize the camera. Coming from a EOS 50D I was tired of carrying around all the weight, also I as worried it would not hold up to the 50D's image quality but I was wrong it is almost as good. The tilt screen is a must have for me now and I would not buy another camera without one.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This is my second EPL#, the first one was defeactive(Hot Shoe Defective),I have sent it back to B & H. The second worked as it should and for me is a wonderful street camera with its small size and speed of operation. I would recommend this to anyone interested in a street camera.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

I recently purchased this camera because I wanted a small SLR type camera to break out of the compact world. After receiving this in the mail, I was very impressed with the quality of pictures it takes as well as the ease of use coupled with the insane amount of manual features present on the camera. I love it!

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This camera replaces my Nikon D200. So far so good. Without getting involved with the physics of photography this PEN PL3 has brought excitement back to my photography. It is small and light to carry very unobtrusive. I feel like a kid again with my first Nikkormat. I am excited by the expanding array of lenses and other optics.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

I have been waiting a long time for a small camera that can do all the things my DSLR can do. The E-PL3 is the answer!! I can only see a very long and rewarding relationship between myself and the Olympus Family. The results are stunning, low light situations are not a problem. Just an amazing product. And of course, as usual, dealing with B&H is not ever a problem.

Tom Franzson Brevard NC

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

I'm not saying you should replace your gf1 with the e-pl3 but I had no choice as my gf1 was stolen. I am happy after more than a week. I had always been attracted by the pen line but found the autofocus too slow and size too big. This size is almost perfect although a grip would make it more comfortable. The e-pm1 was just too simple for me and not much smaller and with a tilt screen and a few more buttons this was a better choice for me. I use a viewfinder but tilt screen has been great when using my small zipshot tripod. E-p3 is too big. I appreciate the ibis, jpgs and art filters that come with the pens. Fun. Easy. I am using it with the vf-3 which is better than the one on my previous gf1 and my main way of composing ( hence gf3 was not an option, also due to batt life). Also actually looks good on the e-pl3 in my opinion. Haven't needed the clip on flash but it is small and unobtrusive. Don't really use the kit lens as i have better lenses, but i can say it is fasr and quiet to focus. Don't miss the touchscreen. I am not seeing an improvement in picture quality but it is a little better in low light than the gf1. Love the shutter and overall look. Taking everywhere.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

So far I am very pleased with the camera. I will need time to gain the skills necessary to use properly. I particularly like that it gives many features of a DSLR, yet in a compact package. It will come in handy in the field. And it will allow me to reconnect with manual skills.
I can't wait to get some extra lenses.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

Moving up from a point and shoot camera. I didn't want to carry around the large DSLR camera and all of it's gear on my travels. This camera is exactly what I was hoping for and more. It's even smaller than I imagined though it's bigger than my P&S. The images are so sharp and taking nice usable pictures in low light i.e indoors or sunset are now possible. The camera feels solid and well built. The shutter feels/sounds like my old film SLR camera from 20 years ago which is something I forgot about. I use two hands to shoot so I don't find the need to add a 3rd party grips on the front yet. It took me a while to learn all the buttons and controls and I'm still learning but once you do, it's pretty easy to change the settings. I don't even want to imagine how long it would have taken me to learn all the buttons on a full sized DSLR! The best feature of the camera... the tilt screen!

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver):

Great camera, easy to use and carry around , my only complaint is its a little hard to hold and shoot with one hand.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver):

I've had this camera about a week and I must say it out performs my Canon D-20 at less than half the size. Quick focus and customizable interface. The picture quality is excellent. I have upgraded by adding the VF-3 and a Panny 20mm f1.7 pancake lens. Great combination for most situations using natural light. The small size takes some getting used to. Awaiting the release for sale of the waterproof case.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver):

My third pen. Sold the ep2, but keeping the E-PL1 as a backup. Found E-PL3 picture quality slightly better than previous Pens, especially when it comes to white balance in artificial light and higher ISO.Love using my Leica M lenses and Contax lenses. Great size for travel with many lenses.

Nikon 7000 & 5100 have somewhat better picture quality, almost enough to justify size and weight, but with the E-PL3 somewhat less. Important to use very good lenses. At lower prices panasonics are better than olympus lenses (ie. 14 - 45 and slim primes.). Hard to beat Olympus 12-60 however.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This is an exceptionally well built little camera, with fantastic AF, no shutter lag, good looks and very good ergonomics. I have a 5D II as my "serious" camera and wanted something smaller. I originally purchased a Panasonic GH2, a nice camera with good ergonomics and incredible features, but bigger than I wanted. I was never quite convinced by the color rendition which tended towards blue-green either, more post than I wanted to deal with. Read up on the new Olympus line up and it sounded interesting. I didn't find the tiny Panasonics my cup of tea - too much plastic.

The build is great - solid, with some heft and a nice thumb grip - no cheap plastics for any key controls. Not a fully articulated screen but good enough and the image quality is very good, with nice accurate colors. The AF is astounding, really, incredibly accurate and crazy fast...blows my 5D away...with easy access to 35 focus points. Continuous tracking AF works very well. Continuous shooting surprisingly very good, and 5fps works as advertised - doesn't seem jam up the buffer as much as my GH2.

Image quality I think is very good. Tried the kit lens and my 20 1.7 Panny. The kit was not too bad, certainly good enough and incredibly small and light, but the 20 is very good performer and better built. I have converted unaltered RAWs to TIFF and run these through my typical workflow. So far so good. The color rendition OOC is incredibly good. WB consistently excellent, exposure excellent. JPEGS look really good. I can't compare this new sensor to previous Pens, but I can to the GH2. I like the colour rendition better, and the DR seems very good, maybe a little better rendering of highlights. 12 MP is enough for what I wanted.

No, I won't be comparing image quality to APS-C or my Full Frame, what's the point? You know the answer. But that is not why I got this camera. I wanted a small good image quality camera, with good performance in AF. With the 20 1.7 on this camera , I have what I want. Highly recommend.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

The photo taking aspects are excellent as is the image quality up to about ISO 1600. The larger screen is a big plus as is the ability to touch the subject on the screen to have the camera focus on it. Video is easy to start and stop and overall quality of the videos is very good.Where the new camera falls down is in the ability to add a flash or an external microphone. The new flash is no longer built into the camera but used a double connection that is unique to Olympus. For adding an external shotgun type of microphone you need to buy the mic and also the Olympus SEMA-1 adapter for [$] which sits on the hot shoe. You cannot use a mic without the adapter and although the adapter includes a tiny microphone it is not directional so very limited in its use. The SEMA-1 mic adapter also ties up the hot shoe so it cannot be used with either a flash or a LED video light. If video use is important I would pass on this camera and get a camera that has a 3.5mm audio jack to enable use of an external microphone. Image stabilization is poor. Using a 50-150mm lens the stabilization is of no use and a fast minimum 1/250s shutter speed is the only way to get sharp pictures without camera motion blur. In-camera stabilization does not begin to compare to stabilization in the lens as used by Canon and Nikon with their lenses.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Red):

I bought this camera this summer from B&H. I love the camera I owned a olympus E Pl1 and a panasonic GH 2 . I love Olympus beautiful ,rich colors right out if the camera. if you don't mind not having a view finder its a great walking around camera..I choose it over my Nikon most of the time because its so small and easy to handle.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Red):

Tried to take a picture of a caterpillar and camera wouldn't lock focus even when I changed the setting. I checked to see if I was trying to get too close. Found out there wasn't a manual focus on this camera and I really missed my viewfinder so returned this camera and ordered a Olympus E-M5 instead. The few pictures I took were sharp and the color was true.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

Using this as companion to my D800, when I'm not in the mood to carry it, or need something more discrete, as a restaurant dinner.
Great sharpness in daylight, cool looks.
Absurd fast auto focus.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

I plan to use this in an underwater housing which I have not done yet. Bought it because it is very compact and will make for a compact UW camera with housing which is what I want. Used it on land on a trip to NYC and it worked great. Just as good as my semi-pro SLRs. The default set-ups are for point and shot photographers but after spend some time weeding through the not bad sub menus I set it up to work just like my SLR. I love this thing because it is so compact I can now have a really good camera that fits in your pocket. To me if there is a flaw it is me getting use to it being as small and light as it is. I started with Canon F1s with motor drives and tend to like something a little larger normally but I do not miss the weight. My 12 pound Cannon get heavier every day I live. Getting use to the size will not be that bad.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

Very good dinamic range,color match to original,clear picture,fast focus.Flash is working great.Vaiting for adapter to try my nikon lenses for fun.B&H is good place to shop!

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

As an avid hiker, I was looking for a solidly built camera with SLR quality and control, with point and shoot size. The E-PL3 is perfect! The camera has a very high quality feel to it. The lens control is very smooth. Other micro 4/3 lenses i've played with felt cheap. The control functions for manual settings are a breeze. After playing with my new camera for only a few days, I was switching over to manual mode and taking beautiful photographs. The iAuto mode is very nice for someone who just wants to turn the camera on and start clicking away.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

we really love this camera. It's perfect for every situation!
The lenses are easy to change. Setting and menu are easy to navigate trough.
I highly recommend this camera

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This camera is amazing for such a small size. The build quality is outstanding! It feels great in your hand. I like how much you can customize the camera. Coming from a EOS 50D I was tired of carrying around all the weight, also I as worried it would not hold up to the 50D's image quality but I was wrong it is almost as good. The tilt screen is a must have for me now and I would not buy another camera without one.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This is my second EPL#, the first one was defeactive(Hot Shoe Defective),I have sent it back to B & H. The second worked as it should and for me is a wonderful street camera with its small size and speed of operation. I would recommend this to anyone interested in a street camera.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (White):

I recently purchased this camera because I wanted a small SLR type camera to break out of the compact world. After receiving this in the mail, I was very impressed with the quality of pictures it takes as well as the ease of use coupled with the insane amount of manual features present on the camera. I love it!

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This camera replaces my Nikon D200. So far so good. Without getting involved with the physics of photography this PEN PL3 has brought excitement back to my photography. It is small and light to carry very unobtrusive. I feel like a kid again with my first Nikkormat. I am excited by the expanding array of lenses and other optics.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

I have been waiting a long time for a small camera that can do all the things my DSLR can do. The E-PL3 is the answer!! I can only see a very long and rewarding relationship between myself and the Olympus Family. The results are stunning, low light situations are not a problem. Just an amazing product. And of course, as usual, dealing with B&H is not ever a problem.

Tom Franzson Brevard NC

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

I'm not saying you should replace your gf1 with the e-pl3 but I had no choice as my gf1 was stolen. I am happy after more than a week. I had always been attracted by the pen line but found the autofocus too slow and size too big. This size is almost perfect although a grip would make it more comfortable. The e-pm1 was just too simple for me and not much smaller and with a tilt screen and a few more buttons this was a better choice for me. I use a viewfinder but tilt screen has been great when using my small zipshot tripod. E-p3 is too big. I appreciate the ibis, jpgs and art filters that come with the pens. Fun. Easy. I am using it with the vf-3 which is better than the one on my previous gf1 and my main way of composing ( hence gf3 was not an option, also due to batt life). Also actually looks good on the e-pl3 in my opinion. Haven't needed the clip on flash but it is small and unobtrusive. Don't really use the kit lens as i have better lenses, but i can say it is fasr and quiet to focus. Don't miss the touchscreen. I am not seeing an improvement in picture quality but it is a little better in low light than the gf1. Love the shutter and overall look. Taking everywhere.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

So far I am very pleased with the camera. I will need time to gain the skills necessary to use properly. I particularly like that it gives many features of a DSLR, yet in a compact package. It will come in handy in the field. And it will allow me to reconnect with manual skills.
I can't wait to get some extra lenses.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

Moving up from a point and shoot camera. I didn't want to carry around the large DSLR camera and all of it's gear on my travels. This camera is exactly what I was hoping for and more. It's even smaller than I imagined though it's bigger than my P&S. The images are so sharp and taking nice usable pictures in low light i.e indoors or sunset are now possible. The camera feels solid and well built. The shutter feels/sounds like my old film SLR camera from 20 years ago which is something I forgot about. I use two hands to shoot so I don't find the need to add a 3rd party grips on the front yet. It took me a while to learn all the buttons and controls and I'm still learning but once you do, it's pretty easy to change the settings. I don't even want to imagine how long it would have taken me to learn all the buttons on a full sized DSLR! The best feature of the camera... the tilt screen!

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver):

Great camera, easy to use and carry around , my only complaint is its a little hard to hold and shoot with one hand.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver):

I've had this camera about a week and I must say it out performs my Canon D-20 at less than half the size. Quick focus and customizable interface. The picture quality is excellent. I have upgraded by adding the VF-3 and a Panny 20mm f1.7 pancake lens. Great combination for most situations using natural light. The small size takes some getting used to. Awaiting the release for sale of the waterproof case.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Silver):

My third pen. Sold the ep2, but keeping the E-PL1 as a backup. Found E-PL3 picture quality slightly better than previous Pens, especially when it comes to white balance in artificial light and higher ISO.Love using my Leica M lenses and Contax lenses. Great size for travel with many lenses.

Nikon 7000 & 5100 have somewhat better picture quality, almost enough to justify size and weight, but with the E-PL3 somewhat less. Important to use very good lenses. At lower prices panasonics are better than olympus lenses (ie. 14 - 45 and slim primes.). Hard to beat Olympus 12-60 however.

Comments about E-PL3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with 14-42mm II f/3.5-5.6 Lens (Black):

This is an exceptionally well built little camera, with fantastic AF, no shutter lag, good looks and very good ergonomics. I have a 5D II as my "serious" camera and wanted something smaller. I originally purchased a Panasonic GH2, a nice camera with good ergonomics and incredible features, but bigger than I wanted. I was never quite convinced by the color rendition which tended towards blue-green either, more post than I wanted to deal with. Read up on the new Olympus line up and it sounded interesting. I didn't find the tiny Panasonics my cup of tea - too much plastic.

The build is great - solid, with some heft and a nice thumb grip - no cheap plastics for any key controls. Not a fully articulated screen but good enough and the image quality is very good, with nice accurate colors. The AF is astounding, really, incredibly accurate and crazy fast...blows my 5D away...with easy access to 35 focus points. Continuous tracking AF works very well. Continuous shooting surprisingly very good, and 5fps works as advertised - doesn't seem jam up the buffer as much as my GH2.

Image quality I think is very good. Tried the kit lens and my 20 1.7 Panny. The kit was not too bad, certainly good enough and incredibly small and light, but the 20 is very good performer and better built. I have converted unaltered RAWs to TIFF and run these through my typical workflow. So far so good. The color rendition OOC is incredibly good. WB consistently excellent, exposure excellent. JPEGS look really good. I can't compare this new sensor to previous Pens, but I can to the GH2. I like the colour rendition better, and the DR seems very good, maybe a little better rendering of highlights. 12 MP is enough for what I wanted.

No, I won't be comparing image quality to APS-C or my Full Frame, what's the point? You know the answer. But that is not why I got this camera. I wanted a small good image quality camera, with good performance in AF. With the 20 1.7 on this camera , I have what I want. Highly recommend.