Olympus E-M1

Olympus E-M1 - Marin County  2014

. . . new camera (with the Panasonic 20mm lens mounted.) Very nice ergonomically! Small and light weight. And, it's been named "Camera of the Year" by a number of respected reviewers.

The best overview of the camera I've found so far is at Wroniak's site. He has some fairly reasonable criticisms of the camera:

The feature I dislike most is how the lever to the right of the eyepiece works. This can be set in five (!) different ways, four of which don't actually change the camera settings, but affect the way the other controls change them. This is interface modality at its worst, you just wake up at night and scream.

Well, I haven't yet woken up screaming, but I must say that I find the camera to be way "overteched." The physical body seems to be quite substantial, but I'm concerned about potential software issues down the road. (One of my earlier cameras, an Olympus DSLR E-510, ended up having an unfixable mode dial issue.)

Of course, the issue of "too much technology" isn't something that's particularly unique to Olympus, or even cameras in general. It's everywhere.

I could go on. And on.

[UPDATE: (As of March, 2015) I finally ended up selling the E-M1 back to B&H and keeping the E-PL5! The E-M1 was larger and heavier and certainly didn't take better pictures, its main advantage was the ability to more directly control exposure. But it was way "overteched" in my view. Right now I'm using the "beginner" OMD camera, the E-M10 which I've been liking so far: it seems to suit my minimalist style much better. And yes, I still have the E-PL5.]