Olympus Unveils PEN E-PL2 Camera With Nifty Accessories

Although some spy shots have surfaced on other sites, today Olympus officially announced the newest member of its PEN family of cameras, the E-PL2. While it’s not doing away with the E-PL1 just yet, the E-PL2 features numerous enhancements that should please photo enthusiasts who a looking for the performance of a DSLR in a smaller package.

First up, the E-PL2 sports a more streamlined and refined design than the E-PL1 with an easier to use wheel switch for scrolling through filters and effects and a bright 3-inch LCD display. Inside, the E-PL2 packs in 12.3 MP on a Live MOS sensor, which is 8 times the size of a typical point-and-shoot. This larger sensor gives the camera the ability to collect more image information from the 14-42mm zoom lens that comes with it. In addition to still photos, it also shoots 720p video and has mini HDMI out.

Olympus has upgraded the Live Guide feature from the E-PL1 to now include previews of in-camera effects on both video and still images. Speaking of effects, this camera has some of the most consumer friendly effects we’ve seen, while still maintaining manual photo control. The E-PL2 includes customizable “art filters” for tweaking color, saturation, lighting and graininess. Apply a filter and using the basic setting or adjust a filter to add greater saturation or less grain.

For the beginning photographer, the E-PL2 includes helpful features such as iDetect, which automatically chooses the subjects’ eyes as the focal point and will do this for up to eight different faces. 22 scene modes are also included with everything from landscape to children to candles. Still want more help? The camera includes on-board shooting tips, too.

If you’re a more experienced photographer, you’ll appreciate the E-PL2’s wide 200 – 6400 ISO range as well as the available lens accessories and add-ons. While you can use interchangeable lenses on the E-PL2, Olympus is also selling add-on conversion lenses that attach to the standard kit lens. Currently, the three available lenses are Fish-eye ($170), Wide-angle ($100), and Macro ($60). The lens are just some of the accessories Olympus is selling to accompany the E-PL2. Also available is a Macro Arm Light which is powered by the camera’s accessory port and features two bendable LED lights for highlighting close-ups in macro shots.

Perhaps the most interesting accessory for the E-PL2 is the PENPal, a Bluetooth-enabled accessory that both stores images and sends them to your smart phone or computer via an app. Capable of storing up to 2600 images, the PENPal is currently compatible with Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 devices.

We can’t wait to go hands-on with the E-PL2 and while it’s the big news today, Olympus is also releasing several other cameras.

• XZ-1 – A fixed lens camera with 4X zoom and the first one to feature an OLED display.
• SP-610UZ – Olympus’s first 3D capable still camera which works by taking a picture, then prompting you to take a second one while displaying an outline of the first one.
• TG-610 – Waterproof, shockproof, and freezeproof camera for adventurous photographers.
• TG-310 – A waterproof camera.
• Two entry-level cameras, the VR-310 and the VG-120.