Olympus’ Selfie Friendly E-PL7 Wants to Woo Smartphone Photographers Away from Their Phones
There’s only so much you can do with a smartphone, and as more and more people begin exploring photography through the little device in their pockets, they inevitably bump up against those boundaries.
These are the people Olympus built the new PEN E-PL7 for, with its social sharing capabilities and selfie-friendly features, hoping to lure a few of the smartphone faithful over to the world of interchangeable lenses and sensor size wars.
Of course, that’s not to say the E-PL7 is a slouch in the hardware department. The 16-megapixel Micro Four Thirds CMOS sensor is the same you’ll find in the E-PL6, but the 3-axis stabilization is borrowed from the more capable OM-D E-M10, and the speedy 81-point AF system lets you shoot moving subjects at 3.5fps, with burst maxing out at 8fps for 20 RAW frames or unlimited JPEGs.
And the E-PL7 also moves the PEN line forward on the social front. It’s the first PEN camera to feature built-in WiFi, has a dedicated selfie mode, and boasts a flipping screen designed with self-portraits in mind.
The 3-inch LCD — which is a 1.04M-dot high-definition touchscreen — automatically activates ‘selfie mode’ when it’s flipped down, mirroring the picture and giving you a shutter button on the screen which, when pressed, gives you one second to strike your best duck face.
You can even shoot multiple selfies at a custom interval, and if you have a power-zoom lens attached it’ll default to the widest angle so nobody’s forehead gets cropped out.
Here are a few more angles on the new shooter:
Additional features include updates to the Olympus Image Share app that let it take better advantage of remote shooting and all the E-PL7’s selfie capabilities, a couple of new Art Filters — “Vintage” and “Partial Color” — and some advances to the UI that will just make the camera overall more intuitive to use.
The PEN E-PL7 is set to arrive on store shelves in late September for $600 body only or $700 in a kit with the 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R lens.
To find out more about the camera, head over to Olympus Press room by clicking here. Or, if you’re ready to go ahead and pull the trigger on the entry-level ILC, you can pre-order the Body Only (Black or Black/Silver) or Kit (Black or Black/Silver) by following those links to B&H Photo.
