Hands-On With The New Olympus PEN E-P3

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Calling all closet Henri Cartier-Bressons: buy you a PEN E-P3, a packet of Gauloises and start shooting people kissing in the street. This new camera, part of Olympus‘ extended PEN line, is probably one of the most solid and capable micro 4/3s cameras I’ve used and with a solid alloy 12mm lens and a Gallic sensibility you can grab some excellent shots.

For example, this new PEN allows you to tap certain portions of the large, bright touchscreen to select focus points. There is also improved facial detection as well as considerably better white balance control in most manual modes.

I haven’t had a chance to shoot much with this little guy but I’ll update you with a full review in the next week. As it stands, I’m quite impressive if slightly put off by the $899 price tag. However, the 12mm prime lens that Olympus is now selling is excellent and, as usual, video recording looks to be the real stand-out when it comes to this line. Tune in shortly for a bit more information and check out the rest of the line.

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