Having been impressed with the quality it was possible to achieve with my E-P3 over the weekend I decided to take it out this lunchtime instead of my G5.

My overall thoughts now are that it was a bit of a mistake.

Partly because I messed up my settings and I am frustrated at losing half my shoot (I am the proverbial bad workman today), but partly because a 12mp sensor leaves very little scope for error.

I can’t crop too much, there is noise even at base ISO that is a real problem in shots with great dynamic range (it’s not too hard to loose shadows) and I cannot sharpen as much as I might with a 16mp image.

The counterpoint to that is that it produces fantastic results as a people camera and the AF leaves my remaining NEX-7 and even my X-Pro1 for dead.

Having raved about the controls at the weekend I’m realising that my E-M5 and X-Pro1 leave most m43s cameras standing from an intuitive control point of view. Even my G5 annoys me slightly with the unresponsiveness of its fly by wire control system (though I suspect that would be rectifiable in firmware and it’s still streets ahead of the E-P3).

I’m expecting some argument from E-P3 owners following this post (fair enough), but such is life! I probably need my hard hat…

To be honest, a bad day at the office doesn’t make the E-P3 a bad camera. It did make me realise why I normally take out the E-M5 or G5 though!