An Olympus shooter in Costa Rica

I was nervous about it, but I did it. I just spent a week on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica with family and friends, and I left my Nikon gear at home. I figured if the image quality of the E-P3 is not up to snuff it would only be for vacation snapshots anyway. Overall I was very pleased with the performance of the E-P3.
I knew the E-P3's auto focus was up to the challenge and I was not disappointed there. The only focussing issues I have had with the E-P3 have been the relatively sluggish AF performance of the 2 Panasonic lenses I have. It is a noticeable difference in AF speed, especially compared to the excellent Olympus 12mm and 45mm prime lenses. Even the "kit" 14-42mm Oly lens blows away the Panasonic 20mm and 100-300mm lenses.
On the other side of the AF coin is the excellent Rokinon/Samyang 7.5mm fisheye. It features manual focus and a manual aperture ring. The E-P3 will still choose the shutter speed for you in aperture priority mode, which is really convenient. This lens is SHARP and a ton of fun to use. All this for around 300 bucks!
The metering on the E-P3 is excellent. When I'm shooting in changing light outdoors, I normally shoot in aperture priority mode and use the exposure compensation for fine tuning. The E-P3's meter and exposure preview (with optional live clipping warnings) make shooting this way a breeze. I shot my wife's E-PL2 a few times during the week and the metering was one of the glaring differences between the two cameras. Not surprisingly, the AF speed was the other big difference.

In great light I really can't complain about the E-P3 at all. The shot at left is a jpeg straight out of the camera. In the beautiful morning light the E-P3 really nailed it. Beyond great light is where I have some trouble with the E-P3. Areas of an image that are under exposed (NOT clipped, just dark) tend to get pretty mushy and noisy. I'm not as worried about grainy shadows as much as I am the loss of detail. Think point-and-shoot mushiness. The other issue I've noticed along the same lines is the relatively narrow dynamic range. I wouldn't call it terrible, but after a week I found myself bracketing shots for HDR processing that I would shoot easily in one frame with a bigger sensor in a DSLR. It is a matter of experience with the camera and understanding what it is capable of.

Speaking of HDR... the narrow dynamic range affected me there too. I usually bracket so that I get over and under 2 stops when I'm shooting for HDR. I also tend to shoot scenes that have a particularly high dynamic range (as in- the sun is in the shot as well as dark foreground shadows). There were several shots that I needed 3 stops over and under to process the scene like I wanted to. Unfortunately I didn't realize that until I was processing the images back in Atlanta.
According to the current rumors the next Olympus micro4/3 camera will address the few issues I have with the E-P3. New sensor, built-in EVF, weather sealed, etc. I'm not usually one to upgrade cameras that often, but the new Oly might be the perfect little camera for me.