Olympus E-P1 at Amazon
That was quick. Just under three weeks ago, Olympus announced the E-P1 Digital PEN. And now, the E-P1 with 14-42 kit lens is available on Amazon. If you've been chomping at the bit to get your mitts on this camera, now's your time. Go, get it! (Update 7/6: Seems that Amazon got a lot of hits on this and sold out their initial batches. The site is back to taking pre-orders.)
The big question now is when does RAW support show up for this little gem in Lightroom? In my own workflow, having support for a camera’s RAW files in Lightroom/ACR is critical. Sure, there’s always the two-step you can do using the manufacturer's utility, but that’s not optimal at all. In my case, I’d probably hold off full scale use of the camera until RAW support is in Lightroom/ACR.
Unfortunately, since Lightroom 2.4 just showed up recently, it might be a little while before we see another revision that will have RAW file support for the E-P1. The folks using Aperture are pretty much in the same boat. As John Beardsworth points out in the comments below, it’d be really nice if DNG support was an option out of the camera. We should be holding all the camera makers’ feet to the fire on this one.
Finally, the last question is when will the kit with the 17mm f/2.8 version show up? That’s the lens I’m really interested in. Still, less than three weeks from major announcement to availability through Amazon. That’s pretty amazing. Kudos to the Olympus folks for what looks to be a well executed launch.
12 Comments
"The big question now is when does RAW support show up...."
The blame, of course, now being Adobe's or Apple's. By all means let camera makers include their own raw formats, but we should point out their failure to include DNG as an option.
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John, no blame at all towards Apple or Adobe is intended. The camera was under NDA till three weeks ago and is just now shipping. It'd be extreme to expect that Apple or Adobe would have Day 1 support for the E-P1 RAW file.
The reason I wrote that sentence was not to cast any ill towards Adobe or Apple, but to note that support in Lightroom and OS X is actually a gating factor for me. Sure, Olympus is shipping its RAW utility, but really, I don't want to do a two-step in my own workflow. Therefore, I'm not really going to entertain putting the camera into serious use until my workflow tools (ACR/Lr in my case) support the RAW files from this camera. Hopefully, that won't be long, but I'm sure it'll be a couple of months at least as we just saw revisions in both Apple and Adobe's support.
And yes, Olympus and all the other manufacturers should support DNG out of the box.
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Agree with your edit, James, and I'm always surprised smaller camera makers like Olympus (let alone the big two/three) need "enhanced interrogation" to their feet.... After all, a DNG option would let them trumpet that a new model "works in your favourite raw processing software - right now". Maybe the early months' sales, before raw support comes along, aren't enough to merit the engineering effort (really?) but it seems they are missing a trick.
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I'm in total agreement about camera's including DNG support. The problem I have is Adobe retains control of the format. I think Adobe should do to DNG what they did to PDF. That is, give up control to a standards body. Then, and only then, would I trust the format completely.
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i reviewed that camera last week, got to say the olympus application is so bad its unreal. am thankful i saved my files as raw and a jpeg. the camera is grate, and i think most hardcore photographers will go the 17mm lens, i hardly touched the 14-42.
i found you blog after goolgeing when there would be light room support for the raw files! looks like there is going to be a little wait
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"I think Adobe should do to DNG what they did to PDF. That is, give up control to a standards body. Then, and only then, would I trust the format completely."
I thought they had done so already.
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Adobe announced last year they would submit DNG to the ISO, but it is not (yet) an ISO standard.
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Just received my E-P1 in the mail yesterday. Bought it via Amazon. Love it so far but I'm having to shoot in JPG or RAW+JPG until LR supports the camera. Maybe I'll just concentrate on learning all the video features for now.
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Adobe have given permission for ISO to use DNG in the revision of TIFF/EP, the ISO standard raw file format. (DNG was based on TIFF/EP, but extended because TIFF/EP was out-of-date and not up to the job). ISO will use some or all of DNG, but I don't yet know how much.
Several cameras use DNG as their raw file format. Pentax cameras give an option of whether to use DNG or PEF. There is no good reason why a camera like this Olympus couldn't have used DNG.
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Re: 17mm kit. I received mine yesterday from Amazon…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tychay/3740253647/in/set-72157621124259596/
Aperture imports the RAW+JPEG, but renders the JPEG's incorrectly if they’re portrait format. It exports the masters correctly. This is what happens before support is built in (for a year with my LX1 it was that way).
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And now, the E-P1 is supported in DNG converter bèta from Adobe !
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this looks like a cracking little camera save for the RAW compatibility issue.
can't wait to get my grubby little hands on one!
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