Everything I said about the EPL1. It goes for the EPL2 as well.

I know this is old news on the web but Olympus just introduced my cheap "dream system" camera.  I'll take it in black, please.  It's basically an upgrade of the EPL1 that's been on the market for the better part of a year.  I've used mine (the EPL1)  extensively and I've found it to be the best of all the smaller cameras on the market.  Even better than the EP-2.  Why? Because they optimized the 12 megapixel sensor so that, for a while, it was the sharpest and lowest noise Olympus camera on the market.

The one reason people preferred about the EP2 over the EPL was the control interface.  This has been improved on the EPL-2.  The LCD on the back is now three inches (measured diagonally) and roughly twice the resolution of it's predecessor's screen.  Of course it still has the port just below the flash shoe, on the back, so you can use the exquisite VF-2 electronic finder (which is my standard set up), or a microphone adapter should you care to give the video a spin.  The EP2 gives you an extra dial but you give up a bit of speed in shooting.

I've pre-ordered an EPL2 to go with the EP2 and the EPL1 and I've sent a few e-mails to people I know in the Olympus USA hierarchy hoping to get a review copy to play with.  The day I get my hands on one I'll clear the decks and use the hell out of it with every lens I have in the drawer.  These little Pens are my "art" cameras.  When I head out the door to do gestalt snaps these are the ones I carry.

My day spent shooting the EPL1 recently, with the older 20mm Pen lens, was amazing.  The manual, hyperfocal, focus setting was a great way to shoot and took me right back to the way we used to do street shooting in the 1980's.

Pros:  Small, easy to carry.  Capable of taking an wide range of lenses from just about every manufacturer, including Leica M series.  Great electronic viewfinder/interchangeable with all other Pens and the new compact XZ-1.  Assuming great Jpeg files.  Yes to raw files. Yes to HD video.  Yes to perfect in my hand.  Built in IS works with 50 year old lenses.  Damn cute.

Cons:  I can't drive to Precision Camera and put my hands on one tomorrow morning.   

While I understand how upset Olympus four thirds users are at the apparent demise of the larger system I'm amazed at the balls Olympus is showing by burning a big bridge and jumping in with both feet to a new system and a new standard.  While we photo nerds love carrying around massive metal and big stuff the reality is that 90% of camera users will be perfectly happy with cameras just like this.  

Me?  I'll keep the Canon stuff for all the clients who want/need bigger files with more resolution.  I'll also keep those fun lenses, and especially the ones with image stabilization.  But when I pack for vacation, street shooting, art projects and general goofing around you can pretty much bet there's going to be Pen close by.  $599.   With a lens?  Really?  Amazing.

A little historical context:  In 2002 this would be a $20,000 camera.  Based on specs.

update note:  (8:04 pm):  Just got back an reply from Olympus.  Their PR agency will be getting in touch tomorrow to arrange a loaner of the EPL2 for my evaluation.  Wow.  That was quick!

What I learned when AT&T disabled my DSL service for nearly six days. And why I still like them.

I've been using AT&T for all my communications needs for......well, decades.  Home lines, home DSL, studio voice and business DSL, and a couple of cellphones.  Recently, my long distance service got slammed by some creepy firm that specializes in shady practices.  When I saw the charge on my phone line I called AT&T.  They were great.  They investigated and disallowed all the charges.  But it made me re-think all the $$ I spend on these services.  A cellphone and a business line for a one person business?  Made sense when clients actually called on the phone but now everything is an e-mail or a text.

I called the business office back and asked them to discontinue the voice line into the studio.  I'd save nearly $100 a month.  They were to convert the DSL service to a "dry loop."  It should have been a slam dunk but it wasn't.  They got rid of the voice line okay but somehow the DSL service fell into the void.  That was last Wednesday.  Now it's monday and service has just been restored.

To their credit, everyone I spoke with at AT&T was competent and highly motivated to make sure I was taken care of, happy and patient.  The actual techs who came to the studio figured out the problem in under five minutes.  For a company that gets routinely slammed online I found their service and customer service demeanor to be absolutely great.  One reason to keep them in my vendor list.

Now my communications waistline is a bit thinner.  I'm practicing my texting and maybe I'll love that too.  But it was calming and reassuring to know that our home DSL was unaffected and that home is only fifteen steps from the front door of the studio.  Maybe that's why I didn't step over the line and become "one of those customers."

So,  what was the positive takeaway of nearly a week without high speed access to the web at my fingertips?  What did I learn without instant communications from the starship "VisualScienceLab?"
I learned that, without visual candy at my ready disposal, I was able to sit down and work on a project from beginning to end without even a glance away from the work screen.  Just this morning I retouched a bunch of stuff, wrote two bids and edited 700 images, placing them into two different online galleries.

Coincidentally Seth Godin wrote one of his short and obvious blogs to tell us that someone who receives and responds to 27,000 texts a month is a victim of resistance.  Duh! Seth.

But really, we've become acculturated to receiving information indiscriminately during our work days and we generally feel compelled to respond in real time.  What this does is serially and frequently interrupt our workflows.  Being isolated (the nature of being a freelancer) we tend to hold on to the communications we receive as a gesture of validation of our existence.  But what it really does is keep us rooted to our chairs or our smartphones, in a constant hold pattern.

I spent more time with the family over the weekend.  I checked e-mail less often.  I didn't surf the web. Instead I went for walks with friends.  Met clients for coffee.  Worked on my book.  And just relaxed.
Now I feel a different sense of calm than I did when I started the week, last week.  Even my overwhelming coffee habit seemed to have abated when my web access was restricted.

Talk about increasing productivity!!!!!  I guess what I'm saying here is that we need to individually reappraise just what the real pay off of social marketing, web surfing and facebook posting really adds to our bottom lines and our enjoyment of real life.  We can always "be" someone on the net.  Can we step up and be a real someone in real life?

Try turning off the stuff and see what happens.  You can always turn it back on.