The High burst speed has been raised ever so slightly from 8fps on the E-PL7 to 8.5fps on the E-PL8. The Low burst mode, on the other hand, remains the same at 3.7fps. In the real world, you will hardly notice any difference. While it's never going to be a sports camera, the burst shooting speeds are still impressive –the mechanical shutter is rated at 8.7fps (we managed to squeeze 9fps out of it) and with the electric shutter you can get up to 15fps. Depending on the subject the AF keeps up very well,but don't expect to use this for birding. The shutter release button is encircled by the first of two command dials. This one by default allows you to change the shutter speed or exposure compensation (+-5EV) when using one of the more creative shooting modes, while the smaller second one that's positioned under your right thumb principally adjusts the aperture. It's a neat system that makes using the manual mode in particular a lot simpler than on most rival cameras in this price category. There are 81 focus points and these can be selected with the touch-screen. The AF EV range focuses in low light down to -2EV (except when refresh is set to high). The screen quality is very good with a bright, clear and colourful display with excellent viewing angles, and despite there being a touchscreen, you can't use the touchscreen to scroll through the menu options.You can adjust the power zoom speed to low/medium/high for photos and videos separately. I still think the biggest bargain on the market is the E-M1 ii- better in every way, but at the cost of 237g more. Those are my thoughts. I'll also be interested in yours.

No review of an Olympus PEN would be complete without taking a look at the varous effects modes on offer. In common with other PEN models the E-PL7 offers the full trange of 14 Art filters. Olympus was one of the first manufacturers to include in-camera filters in anything more advanced than a point and shoot compact and those on the PEN E-PL7 are among the best and most versatile around. The range has grown and there are now 14 available filters including Pop Art, Grainy Film, Pin Hole, Cross Process, Key Line and Partial Colour shown above.Although low-light shooting is typically not the forte of smaller sensors, the five-axis sensor shift image stabilization helps to keep ISO speeds low and gives you slightly longer handheld shutter speeds, which should produce cleaner results. As a travel-orientated camera, it’s also likely that you’ll primarily be shooting in good light, which makes its low-light credentials less of an issue.

The E-P7 and E-PL10 don’t have a built-in viewfinder and this is the main difference in design with the OM-D series. I probably would have bought this if it had the port. I am sure that the marketing gurus at Olympus did their focus group surveys etc. so I must be in a very small minority. The camera offers 8.7fps continuous shooting when using the mechanical shutter, and up to 15fps when using the electronic shutter with fixed focus, at the full 20MP resolution. This drops down to 5fps when using the camera’s image stabilisation system, or when using continuous AF. The new E-P7 is a lovely camera to look at, but that is not a surprise: Pen models have always stood out for their design, and the E-P7 is one of the prettiest I think. In Movie Mode the PEN E-PL7’s Live control menu allows you to change a range of settings independently of the same settings in stills shooting modes. These include the movie mode and quality settings, exposure and AF modes (including Face priority modes), processing options (Picture mode) ISO sensitivity, and audio recording. You can also set the movie stabilisation here.This test compares the amount of random noise generated by the camera at different ISO settings as a proportion of the actual image information (the 'signal'). Higher values are better and we expect to see the signal to ratio fall as the ISO is increased. Recent iterations of the PEN Lite have been caught between the point-and-shoot orientated PEN Minis and the enthusiast-targeted full-sized PENs, and have ended up not being a perfect fit for anyone. The PL7 seems less concerned about treading on its siblings' toes: it wears its classic styling more boldly, rather than looking like a pastiche of its big brother and the control dial means it can offer a more hands-on shooting experience than previous little PENs. Interestingly, there's no sign yet of an update to the less expensive model. Continuous autofocus was left switched on for this sample video, and at times the focus can be seen to wobble, but remains focused on the area of interest. ISO and Noise Dumbed down compared to the 10 Mk2 then. I'm surprised that they have deleted this feature. It seems to work reliably for me with the Lumix 12-32 and other lenses, as it is very seldom that I miss focus. Oddly, I seem to miss focus more often with the E-M1 Mk2. The E-P7 resembles the old Pen half-frame film camera, whereas the E-PL10 has a more fashionable look with its faux leather finish. The E-M10 IV resembles an old SLR film camera. E-M10 IV E-P7 E-PL10