Design and Layout
Clearly, this is the “apples-to-oranges” part of this three-way matchup. Obviously, the Olympus E-P1’s raison d’etre is its completely new design, and its exterior clearly shows that. The side-by-side shots shown here tell the story. The E-P1 is roughly the size of the other two cameras without the prism/viewfinder assembly, but there’s a little more to it than that.
The Olympus E-P1 has only a small, raised area on the right-hand side of the body, where the other two cameras have a much larger, graspable grip echoing larger DSLRs. Strangely, the E-P1, without a grip, seemed easier to handle than the others with bigger grips. Here’s our theory on that: the smaller DSLR cameras are actually so compact that there isn’t enough room for an adult’s hand to comfortably grip the camera and reach the controls without feeling cramped. The flatter form of the Olympus leads you to grasp it in a different way, by the fingers rather than the hand, so it ends up feeling more secure and handling better, especially in light of the position it’s being used, viewing with the LCD in front of the face, instead of up to the eye.
The other controls, shooting modes, playback, shutter and settings are fairly brand-standardized across the models now. Canon’s menu is almost identical in feel to all of its current cameras, as is the Nikon and the Olympus.
From the side, the Olympus E-P1’s standard zoom lens (14-42mm) is actually quite long. When you figure it into the thickness of the entire kit (body with the lens applied), the thin profile of the E-P1 measures out much closer to the Canon T1i and Nikon D5000 kits. The weight, however, is a big difference. The body-only weight of the E-P1 is only a bit more than half that of the Nikon, the heavier of the two DSLRs, and the Canon isn’t a whole lot lighter than the Nikon.
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Front
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| Canon Rebel T1i Nikon D5000 Olympus P-E1 |
Back
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| Canon Rebel T1i Nikon D5000 Olympus P-E1 |
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Right
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| Canon Rebel T1i Nikon D5000 Olympus P-E1 |
Left
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| Canon Rebel T1i Nikon D5000 Olympus P-E1 |
Top
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| Canon Rebel T1i Nikon D5000 Olympus P-E1 |
Battery
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| Canon Rebel T1i Nikon D5000 Olympus P-E1 |
