Worth a Look Wednesdays: The digital PEN and Ricoh's overpriced niché

I'm sure you may have already heard about Digital Photography Review - it is undoubtedly one of the best sources of in-depth camera reviews and industry news. I generally prefer these types of reviews, but I understand the influx of information can be daunting and downright baffling to most people. And to be quite honest, unless I'm about to buy a camera body, I usually only read their review conclusions to get a feel for the pros and cons of a camera and how it compares with my aging (though still lovely) Nikon D200. It's just that most review websites are generally run by shitty photographers, taking shitty photos, and probably just copying sentiments from their shitty peers. Now the quality of Digital Photography Review's test shots aren't stellar works of art either, but at least they provide people who know what they want in a camera all the information they could ever possibly want about whatever product they are reviewing.

They recently gave the ol' OCD treatment to the Olympus E-P1, a camera that has made me harder than Zooey Deschanel. But in their entire review, I noticed they did not address how the performance was with third party adapters. I was really curious to see how quick/long the shutter lag was when using an adapter for a Leica lens for example. I really want something to take along on a daily basis for random street shots. The Olympus E-P1 looks to have addressed a lot of issues I had with smaller cameras. The only thing that could potentially bother me is the live view performance and shutter lag. Since I'd be relying on the screen to check focus, if the camera fails in the aforementioned categories, it would be almost useless in all but the best lighting conditions. And that would be a shame considering the high ISO performance looks pretty decent on this thing. The autofocus doesn't look so hot, but I'm not too concerned since I'm looking to use this camera with manual focus lenses anyways. But it does look like something they could potentially fix with a firmware update. From the specs it looks to be roughly the same size as my FM3a, which would be a fine compromise in terms of size and quality for me.

Another interesting camera is the Ricoh GR III. It's got a pretty fast fixed 28mm lens at f/1.9. I haven't seen any test shots yet but I like the concept, I was curious about the original GR and GR II when they came out, but they aren't readily available in the U.S. I just think the asking price is a little too high. I'm sure the image quality isn't going to come close to what you could get with the Olympus, or my D200, but the fact that it shoots raw and has a pretty fast lens could go a long way in real world use. I've also read good things about the the GR's manual controls. I would seriously consider this as an option if the shutter lag/af/and shot-to-shot times were decent. And if the price drops to a more palatable $400, I'm sold. Right now, with the the conversion rate, it's more than the Olympus E-P1, and a few entry-level DSLRs.

But after buying my Surly Steamroller, I don't think I'll be getting one of these anytime soon...well maybe Christmas.