Beauty and brains: Meet the Olympus E-PL8

Olympus’s line of mirrorless cameras, the PEN series, is much loved by the blogger community and with good reason: they’re always stylish, small enough to carry wherever you go and extremely straight-forward to use. They also take fantastic photos without the user having to know too much about photography, which is always a bonus when you’re trying to document a busy social life for your followers!

That’s why the newest member of the family, the Olympus PEN E-PL8, is set to be the same smash hit as its relatives. Olympus has continued its commitment to exceptional styling combined with the latest photographic tech to ensure this is a camera you – and everyone else – will want to take with you every day. Let’s have a closer look at why…

It looks the part

You can’t ignore the way this camera looks. Clean, crisp styling in a minimalist white finish (exclusive to Jessops!) with classic chrome detailing, the PEN E-PL8 will match perfectly with any outfit you can dream up.

The E-PL8 is also lightweight, clocking in at just 326g for the body on its own, and small enough to carry alongside your everyday belongings without adding extra bulk. These smaller mirrorless cameras are the perfect way to encourage a phone photographer to step up to a separate device: not only does it look smart, but it’s also barely noticeable in your bag, weakening the argument about having to carry a separate device.

“Touch selfies”

Love taking a selfie, or know someone who does? The PEN E-PL8 has an adjustable rear touchscreen LCD: flip it down and the camera automatically enters Selfie Mode, optimising the camera’s settings to improve self-portraits. Zoom lenses automatically move to the widest-possible angle, and the menu changes to show one-touch creative options which can be controlled with a finger, meaning you don’t have to worry about blocking off part of the shot. The result? Pin-sharp, beautiful selfies making the most of the camera’s capability to take pictures with background blur, creative effects and at a resolution high enough to create detail-rich canvases or prints of your photos. Try doing THAT with a smartphone.

It’s connected

Most cameras these days offer wireless connectivity to smartphones or tablets, and the PEN E-PL8 is no exception: use Olympus’s free O.I.Share app to quickly link the camera with your phone and enjoy transferring, editing and sharing images in an instant. You can also use the app to take control of your phone and shoot full-body selfies remotely: handy if you’re keen on capturing your #OOTD (outfit of the day, for those not in the know).

Get creative

Along with being small and light but still super powered, the other great thing about owning a mirrorless is the ability to swap lenses: Olympus has a huge range of different optics of all levels, sizes and lengths – plus a few new ones announced alongside the E-PL8 that are definitely worth a look – so you can level up once you’ve decided what sort of photos you enjoy taking the most.

Within the camera itself are a whole host of creative options and features, namely Olympus’s famous Art Filters, designed to add a little extra oomph to your pictures. Use them as you would on Instagram – and you can even change the camera aspect ratio to shoot square images, so you’re immediately ready to share your work on the ‘gram!