CKrueger
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WOW. I got my EP3 Friday night, and it's an awesome little camera.
Single-shot AF with the kit lens (14-42/3.5-5.6) is as fast as my 5D2 with my 24-70/2.8. Maybe a little faster. I think the 5D2 is a little better in very low light (I have yet to shoot them side-by-side to test), but considering the EP3 is using an f/5.6 lens and the 5D2 is using an f/2.8 lens I wouldn't put much in the difference. I don't mean to spout hyperbole, but I think CDAF has finally matched PDAF, at least for focusing on static subjects.
The new body is about the same as my EP1. The removable grip is nice, but I found myself wishing for a pistol grip when shooting with my 100-300. The increased button configurability is nice. The biggest annoyance is the useless EC button. I wish I could configure it to control ISO, rather than giving up the more-useful shooting mode (single/continuous/timer) button.
The Digital TC feature is very nice. When shooting JPEG it's a 2x crop to the camera. But when shooting RAW it does nothing to the image. Why is that useful? Because the viewfinder is cropped 2x, while the shot comes out normal! You might think that the various manual focus assist systems in Oly and Panny cameras do this job already, but this is better, IMHO. I press the Fn2 button on the camera and the view instantly pops in to a 2x center crop. I can shoot like this if I like. I press it again and the view instantly pops back out to the full frame. This is much faster than the automatic zoom in and out when turning the focus dial, but it's one button press less to operate than the normal manual magnified view.
The same hands-off approach is taken with the image when shooting non-4:3 ratio shots, if you're shooting RAW. Set the camera to 3:2 and the RAW file is untouched (I expect it tags metadata in the file indicating the crop?), but the viewfinder is cropped to your chosen frame. You can even see a bounding box in the LCD review; the image shown is 4:3, but there's a white box around the 3:2 frame. The GH1/2's multi-aspect sensor is cool, but this is just as good, IMHO; you're not throwing away pixels by shooting at 3:2. You just get the framing aid of an LCD or EVF with the aspect ratio you want.
The LCD is considerably brighter than my EP1. The EP1 was marginal outdoors; usable but it made me long for my iPhone's screen. The EP3 is much brighter. Its only downside is when shooting vertically and down, the LCD glass picks up the sky and shows some glare. If you position yourself to look at the LCD straight on this isn't a problem, but if you're off angle (hold the camera at arm's length and point it down) it can be hard to see the LCD. Still, I found the EP3 much more usable outdoors than my EP1.
All that said, for me the touch screen AF is the main attraction (and I thought I wouldn't like it!). The combination of touch-to-shoot, lightning-fast single-shot AF, and a sensitive capacitive touch screen make it dramatically faster to shoot than a focus-and-recompose or manual focus camera, for some types of shooting. This feature makes the camera a must-have for me.
Shooting people with the touch screen is a joy. Frame the photo and wait for "the moment". When it comes, touch the part of the frame you want in focus. This is great for my infant daughter, who tends to move around a lot in the frame as I'm waiting for the shot. With my 5D2 I have to continuously refocus as she moves, until the moment I shoot. (This is made all the more difficult because the off-center AF points on the 5D2 are junk in low light.) I've miseed more than a few perfect shots due to her movement or not being focused in time.
Shooting subject with highly off-center focus points is great with the touch screen. I shot a low-angle shot of some prairie flowers yesterday, which normally takes me a few frames as the plants sway back and forth in the breeze. With the touch screen I could simply frame the shot and tap on the plant. The AF point is exactly where I press and AF is so fast that the plants have no chance to move OOF.
I also found some bumblebees yesterday. Normally with my 5D2+100/2.8+MT24EX I try to watch for a pattern in movement to predict the plant they might end up on next, AF on that plant, then wait for the bee to come to the plant and quickly move the camera in and out to get critical focus. That or I rely on either the AF of my 100/2.8 (which is slow at close distances) or attempt to manually focus (doable, but I miss a lot when forced to do it in less than a second). The EP3's touch screen made this task easier. I set the focus distance to the point where a typical flower filled the frame as I liked, then I followed the bees around with my camera. As long as I kept the bee in frame, I'd tap on him repeatedly and shot after shot came out great. I would definitely use a tele macro lens for this kind of shooting, but the camera does a GREAT job.
The one area the touch screen WASN'T useful was shooting wildlife. Not because I had to hold the camera in a wobbly way to use the rear LCD, or because the touch screen created vibration, but because I had a heck of a time finding my subjects at 600mm-e! Using an SLR I can normally find subjects at 640mm-e with no problems just looking "down the boresight". I have fair luck at 960mm-e (300*2*1.6 crop). It's not until 1344mm-e (300*2*1.4*1.6 crop) that I become hopeless. But without the ability to look down the boresight on the EP3 I have a much more difficult time aiming the camera properly at long focal lengths. More difficulty than I had at 960mm-e with an OVF, I'd say. Now the zoom on my 100-300 helps greatly with this, but it slows me down. I hope the VF-2 I have coming in the mail will solve this problem, because the EP3+100-300 combo seems very nice otherwise.
Overall I'm extremely happy with this camera. My DSLRs do a few things better (high ISO noise, super-short DOF, AF tracking, macro hardware), but after just one day's shooting with the EP3 I already prefer using it over my DSLRs.
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