The first day of Chinese New Year presented an excellent opportunity to perform some real world tests of the new Olympus E-PL2. I left all other lenses at home and took just the E-PL2 and the 17 mm kit lens for a spin at the Kwan Ti Temple.
For street photography, the combo is a good choice as it is lightweight and unobtrusive. Since I dial into different modes all the time and do exposure compensation on the fly, the menu system and control wheel of the camera coped quite well…
Olympus E-PL2, ISO 200, f16, 1/160 sec -2 EV
Fire & Smoke. By reducing the exposure two stops, I was able to preserve the ambience of the flames, smoke and the silhouette effect. I also manually adjusted the camera’s white balance preset to make it ‘colder’. A small aperture was also chosen for greater depth-of-field. For a compact body, every control was still easily accessible.
Olympus E-PL2, ISO 200, f13, 1/160 sec
Young Supermodels. These two girls struck up a series of wonderful poses when they saw my camera 
. One thing I found out was that the LCD appeared brighter than it actually was. So I tend to underexpose in the beginning without checking the histogram display (which I usually don’t).
Olympus E-PL2, ISO 200, f2.8, 1/180 sec with flash
Deities. One of the things I like about the E-PL2 is the easy flash compensation adjustment. Here, I dialed down the on-board flash by two stop since the camera was very close. I can also fire an external flash remotely via the wireless RC feature. This frees up the hot-shoe for the optional electronic viewfinder.
See also:
Dong Zen CNY Lantern & Flora Fest with E-PL2 | The Art Of Art Filters
The Bird Park with E-PL2 & The M.Zuiko 75-300mm Lens
Getting there: Mycen Map of Chinatown KL
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