An Olympus E-PL1 in 2018?

I recently ran into a photographer whose work I respect at a party. I'd have expected him to bring his crazy rig along, but he arrived with a Sony P&S camera, citing weight and usability for his girlfriend as factors for avoiding bringing a Sony A7RII.

I have a beat-up Olympus E-PL1 that I primarily shoot with a Panasonic Lumix 14mm f2.5. Playing with P mode, I tried to see how low I can go with ISO. The following shots were progressively stepped down from 800 to 200, and finally to 100:

Not bad at ISO100! It definitely looks like daylight is the best time to use this lens and body combo. I have found that anything above ISO800 on the E-PL1 makes things too grainy.

One of the major reasons why I got the E-PL1 in the first place was to use its Art filters. This is the dioarama effect, and it's pretty cool with the wide angle possible with the 14mm!

Again, this was mostly possible with daylight. I suspect it will be a much different story in low light. Will try it out more!

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Pedaltrain Nano Adventures for Christmas 2017 ("Last One", said No One Ever)

"Last Pedaltrain purchase, I promise."

"Yes, I'll change to the PT Junior, and ditch the PT Nano. I need the larger real estate."

I'm guilty of making empty promises. My wife knows me better. She knew that I wouldn't last half a month without my itchy fingers needing to tweak or change something up. Now that I've recently purchased a Canon 5D Mark II, I need to Purge some gear to fuel the camera Urge. Purge and Urge.

This iteration of the PT Nano sees a squeezing of 8 pedals, with the following signal path:

1. Hotone Soul Press
2. Hotone Komp
3. Xotic SL Drive
4. ZVEX Double Rock
5. GFI Clockwork V2
6. Hotone Tuner
7. GFI Specular V2
8. Mooer Micro DI

I built this with the following in mind:

1. I wanted a variety of drives in case the Double Rock was too limiting in any way. The SL is a bright and punchy pedal, which can shine through certain amps.
2. I wanted a dedicated DI box on my board with cabinet simulation for direct-to-board cases. For too long have I showed up at a venue only to find a sub-par DI box and no amps. With the Mooer, it's not the top of the line, but it gets the job done and I haven't had anyone come up to me after a show commenting that my "amp tone" was bad.
3. I wanted to double this as my acoustic rig. I'll obviously be avoiding the SL drive, but the Double Rock has clean boosts in it (identical SHO circuits on both sides), which may be useful to add volume to my passive acoustic pickup. With the acoustic, I'll mostly be using the Specular for those pad-like drones.
4. I wanted a lightweight solution to pack into a Mono Tick. No matter how hard I try to use a larger rig, I always come back to my Tick. It's the ideal size and weight for frequent travelling and gigging.

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