Hands-On Review: Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 with M.ZUIKO 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens

What do you bring with you when packing light for a casual 5-day trip to sunny San Diego? Let me suggest the combination of the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 and M.ZUIKO 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ lens as a great travel companion. Your general options are: large and heavy DSLR, point-and-shoot, smartphone, or mirrorless camera. You know you are bringing your smartphone already, but you know you don’t want to be limited to the smartphone camera. You know that some mirrorless cameras rival DSLRs for size and complexity and you want to stay light and flexible. This is where the PEN Lite E-PL6 shines, as it almost fits in the palm of your hand.

The E-PL6 allows you to travel light, but still have a more-than-capable tool for image making. This tiny but powerful Olympus Micro Four Thirds format camera is just what the travel agent ordered.

Design

From across a room, or even across a dining table, the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 looks like an unassuming point-and-shoot camera. The M.ZUIKO 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ lens is small and gives the uneducated eye no indication that it is removable and changeable. Because of this, the E-PL6 is as unassuming as you can get on a camera that has literally dozens of lens options.

Flying west
 

The chassis is elegant and simple. From the front, the only button on the face is that which gets depressed when you want to change lenses. The top of the camera gives you an ON/OFF button with a bright LED indicating that the camera is ready for action, a shutter release, and a standard Olympus PASM wheel. The back is home to the tilting screen, and the rest of the Olympus interface. A rubberized rest provides a surprising amount of grip and feels good under the thumb.

Disguised as a point-and-shoot, there is no hump for a viewfinder (digital or optical), nor are there any optical windows on the front of the camera. The camera will accept the Olympus VF-4 electronic viewfinder for those wanting to bring the E-PL6 to their eye. Also, Olympus has a sharp-looking hot-shoe-mounted optical VF-1 viewfinder with coverage for the 17mm lenses—the M.ZUIKO 17mm f/1.8 or the pancake-style M.ZUIKO 17mm f/2.8 lens.

Vought F-8 Crusader on the USS Midway in San Diego, California
 

The camera feels dense to the hand, and the polycarbonate body has enough texture to give the package a feeling of quality and solidity. Slippery plastic wouldn’t work on this camera—it really doesn’t work on any camera, for that matter.

The tiny zoom lens retracts into itself and has a lock switch to prevent accidental retraction while zooming toward the wide end of the 28-84mm 35mm equivalent lens.

Inside

The PEN Lite E-PL6 replaced the popular E-PL5, but, features-wise, is a stripped-down version of the PEN flagship, the E-P5. A few years ago, Wi-Fi connectivity was a notable feature for a camera. Today, it is a notable omission. Honestly, I haven’t really taken advantage of the Wi-Fi capabilities of the cameras I have tested or own, so not having a Wi-Fi system to set up and connect is almost a benefit for me. Besides, if you need to share your PEN Lite E-PL6 images on-the-go, there are several options, including the new Eyefi 16GB mobiPRO SDHC memory card.

Café Topes, Carlsbad, California. Yum.
 

One more stripped-down feature is image stabilization. Instead of the more sophisticated 5-axis system, the E-PL6 relies on a very effective 3-axis system.

Instead of dwelling on features it does not have, let’s talk about what it does have. Inside the E-PL6 is a Micro Four Thirds 16MP Live MOS sensor coupled to the Olympus TruePic VI image processor. The E-PL6 can capture RAW images, fire off eight frames per second, and shoot Full HD 1080i video. ISO goes as low as 100 and as high as 25600. The shutter goes as fast as 1/4000 of a second. An optional flash is included and can be attached to the PEN Lite.

 
Light fixture at Balboa Park
 

Autofocus is one of more than a few categories in which the PEN Lite E-PL6 shines. The company specifies a 0.044-second AF lag time with its FAST (Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology) AF system. Coupled with the standard Olympus kit lens, the E-PL6 focused blazingly fast.

The 3" LCD screen rotates 170⁰ up for self-portraits and 65⁰ down. For the creative types, there are 12 in-camera filter options to choose from, including Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale and Light Color, Light Tone, Grainy Film, Pin Hole, Diorama, Gentle Sepia, Cross Process, Key Line, Dramatic Tone, and Watercolor.

Interface

The Olympus interface and menu system is quirky to all but Olympus users. Olympus cameras speak a slightly different dialect of the digital photography language. If you are new to Olympus, expect a learning curve. I wouldn’t recommend buying this camera 30 seconds before you need to take the most important pictures of your life. The camera can take fantastic photos, so that isn’t the shortcoming. You’ll just need a few extra minutes to set up the camera. If you are an Olympus veteran, there is no need to sweat the interface. And, once you learn your way around, things are much happier with the Olympus menus, but I kept a PDF copy of the manual handy on my smartphone and ended up referencing it a few times.

EvrBottle, Carlsbad, California
 

The rear of the camera has a four-position thumb pad with a center “OK” button. Surrounding the thumb pad is a scrolling wheel. I am still getting used to touch-screen LCDs on cameras, but life gets easier when you use the combination of the buttons, wheel, and touch-screen LCD.

Speaking of the touchscreen, the Olympus Touch AF system is a great feature. Compose your shot, figure out your focus point, touch the screen where that point is and the camera focuses incredibly fast and takes a photo. Compose. Touch. Click. Done.

Handling

Making photos with the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 is fun. The code on start-up times has been cracked, at least by Olympus. I can’t operate a stopwatch and the camera simultaneously, but it feels like you can hit the power button and take an image almost as fast as your fingers can move from the ON/OFF button to the shutter release or LCD screen. It is really fast.

Spreckels Organ, Balboa Park, San Diego, California
 

I mentioned it before, and it is worth repeating, this camera focuses very fast. Scary fast. Combine the focus speed with the Touch AF shutter LCD functionality and you have a camera more than happy to capture action sequences or grab a moment on the street. I was impressed with the overall speed of the entire E-PL6 package.

The downside of the Touch AF system is that, when putting the camera away, or taking it out, with the lens unlocked, you might fire off a few frames when you accidently touch the screen. The upside of this is that I got at least one really cool abstract of the inside of my cargo shorts pockets as I pulled the camera out. Very avant-garde. I’ll be submitting that image to several modern art museums once I finish this review.

Future award-winning modern art abstract
 

If you missed it in the last paragraph, the E-PL6 fit nicely and easily into the cargo pocket of my shorts. It is light and unobtrusive. Combine the camera with a Micro Four Thirds pancake lens like the M.ZUIKO ED 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ, M.ZUIKO 17mm f/2.8, M.ZUIKO 25mm f/1.8 ED and you will have a serious camera that can easily slip into a lot of pockets. The non-pancake lens used for this test gave the camera just enough depth that it was a very tight fit in and out of standard front pockets.

Even though some folks may stick their chin up at the fact that the E-PL6 does not have a 5-axis stabilization system, the 3-axis system seemed to work extremely well, as I was able to get some nice low-light shots handheld, even with a lens that only opened to f/3.5. 

La Jolla Independent BMW Service, La Jolla, California
 

My biggest complaint about the shooting experience was the cumbersome way that one changes exposure settings when in the A, S, or M modes. You can tell this camera was meant to shoot mostly on P mode, as changing aperture and shutter speed manually requires a bit of patience and will not happen as quickly as it will on cameras with thumb and forefinger command dials at the ready.

Optics

This is the third Olympus camera I have reviewed and, again, I have been impressed by the optics. The price of the M.ZUIKO ED 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R lens shows it to be an entry-level kit lens, but its performance does not leave you thinking “kit lens.” One clear advantage of the Micro Four Thirds format is that the smaller sensor fits nicely into the image circle produced by the lens. This allows many Micro Four Thirds lenses to show impressive corner-to-corner sharpness.

Carlsbad, California
 

Its 35mm focal-range equivalent of 28-84mm places it solidly in the mid-range zoom category; ideal for general photography from landscapes to portraits. It is tiny and silent. The zoom ring feels great and the lock/unlock switch is easy to use. The manual focus ring feels well damped, also.

View from the Electra Building, San Diego, California

Overall

To sum up the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6: its point-and-shoot form factor with interchangeable-lens versatility and image quality is vastly superior to a smartphone.

If I had my druthers, I would equip the E-PL6 with the pancake version of the 14-42mm lens, or go with the 17mm pancake prime and maybe the VF-1 viewfinder for a completely compact companion.

Flying east
 

I think this camera will appeal to a variety of customers. If you are getting into digital photography and want an interchangeable-lens camera, the E-PL6 is a great entry point, as it offers great image quality while allowing the acquisition of some sparkling Micro Four Thirds lenses for your collection as you grow as a photographer.

If you already have a battery of Micro Four Thirds lenses and a body or two, you can easily add the E-PL6 to your lineup as a great option for traveling light when you know you want a machine adept at getting better-quality images than your smartphone, but want something that can be tucked into a pocket or purse.

The Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 simply gives the photographer point-and-shoot portability with interchangeable lens flexibility and capability.