Wired is running a review on the E-P1 I discussed earlier on. It has an important point that I hadn’t heard before:
The three-inch LCD is clear and bright, and that’s good, because with no viewfinder you’re relying on it to compose your shots. That can make manual focusing an exercise in Heisenbergian ambiguity: You can either be in focus or have a well-framed shot, but not both. When you turn the focus ring, the viewfinder zooms in to a tiny detail of the frame, letting you easily judge the clarity, but also robbing you of the ability to see the whole picture. It’s like composing shots by looking through a long cardboard tube.
That’s a significant limitation. I can imagine manually focusing this camera a lot, given its reported autofocus limitations, but this might make that too ungainly too.
There’s been a rumor floating around that an E-P2 with an integrated viewfinder might be on its way. Come on, E-P2!