Hello Jon
I recently bought a Pen E-P1, too, as a present for myself for my 50th birthday.
Since this is not my first Olympus, I already had a good starting point for fine-tuning the Pen, as this is a feature whre any Olympus really shines: You can get excellent JPEGs out-of-the-camera which then rarely need post- processing.
This is worthwhile reading, as the E-30 is as close to the PEN, sonsor-wise, as possible:
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/43/e30-sett.html
To get the most out of your JPEGs, you may try this:
Forget "Auto", as this mode gives you no influence at all at the technical quality of the pics,
use "P" instead, this mode lets you use all the f/time-combinations you want without the hassle of full manual.
Picture mode normal,
gradation normal,
contrast zero, ditto saturation and sharpness, eventually these two +1,
noise filter low,
file format LSF or LF, there is nearly no difference between these, RAW is only necessary if you do a lot of post-processing.
ISO 200 as standard (ISO auto max 800).
Exposure compensation usually 0 or -0,3. With the ESP-metering doing an excellent job and Live-view any adjustments are a doddle.
On my recent hiking-trip, look at "out and about" I encountered ever changing light when entering or leaving the woods. Being to lazy to always change ISO, I put "My Mode 1" on the FN-button and upon pressing had a good low-light setup:
essentially the same as above, but ISO Auto and noise filter standard.
