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January 30, 2008

[ REVIEW—OLYMPUS E-3 DSLR ]

Price: $2500 (body only)

Olympus woos the pros

The low-down: The E-3 is aimed at professional and well-heeled amateurs. It is built around the Four Thirds system and has a 10 megapixel sensor. As befits a professional camera, bound to take some hard knocks, it is rugged and well sealed against dust and water. Effective image stabilisation is built into the camera body – a 5 stop advantage is claimed and we found that hand-held telephoto shots were sharp down to 1/25 second. The viewfinder displays 100% of the image area and the LCD screen can also be used as a viewfinder in “Live” mode. The LCD swivels, but it is small by comparison with the Canon/Nikon alternatives. Olympus pioneered automatic dust removal and the E-3 has an improved version of the Supersonic Wave Filter system. Both CF and xD memory cards can be used.

Like: Picture quality is consistently good, although we found the default saturation and contrast settings a little high. The shooting information is displayed on a body-top LCD and on the preview screen as well as in the viewfinder. The 12–60mm f2.8–4 lens (RRP $1500) that most customers will buy as part of the kit is of a higher quality than the lenses supplied with lesser cameras. The designation “kit” does it an injustice.

Dislike: The only reservation we have about this camera applies to all in the Four Thirds camp – the sensor area is smaller than the more conventional APS-C cameras. This means that the photo receptors are smaller and therefore noise is slightly more noticeable. However, up to ISO400 this is not an issue. Ergonomics could be better. We prefer a mode selection dial to the E-3’s combination of button plus selector wheel.

Verdict: The Olympus E-3 is a fine camera, but whether it will woo professionals away from their Canons and Nikons with larger sensors and bigger installed lens and accessorie bases remains to be seen. The price seems about right by comparison with the competition, being $400 cheaper for the body than for a Nikon D300. And while the 12–60mm lens is expensive it is also high quality. We achieved consistently satisfying results straight from the camera with no Photoshop tweaking needed.

[There are sample images from the Olympus E-3 in the Gallery]

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Posted by terry at 05:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

[ IN THE PRIME(S) ]

A PLAINTIVE EMAIL came the other day from a reader who has been looking at the sample images from test cameras that we post in

The Gallery.

“Love your sample photos, particularly the sharpness of the detail. I have the Canon 400d twin lens kit and do not seem to be able to get this clarity. Is it me or the lens?”

Here’s the sad truth of the matter. Canon’s RRP for the 400D body with two lenses – an 18–55mm and a 75–300mm zoom – is $1350. It is a bargain. You are getting a camera with lenses of film-equivalent focal lengths of 29mm to 480mm. That is amazing, until you consider that the Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens that we have been trying for the past two months costs $1000 on its own. And the 60mm lens we have also been using sells for $750. So two lenses for $300 starts to look a little improbable.

The cheap kit zooms are made down to a price. Construction is flimsy, optics are just acceptable and resolution, auto focus accuracy, colour fidelity and contrast are all compromised. They take acceptable photos – the gear is always secondary to the photographer’s skill – but to get the picture that zings it helps to have a good lens.

Back in the olden days we bought a 35mm single lens reflex camera with an f1.8 or, if we were feeling rich, an f1.4 50mm lens. We stuck with that combination until we could afford a 135mm medium telephoto lens and a 28mm wide angle. These days the best zooms can cover the 28 to 135mm range with excellent image quality, but such a lens costs $1500 or more.

There are no bargains in lenses, only cheap lenses. Third party prime lenses from Sigma, Tamron and Tokina tend to be cheaper than the OEM optics and they are of excellent quality and that is as near a bargain as you can get.

There is something luxurious about a really great prime. For our Nikon D80 the preferred lens is the Micro Nikkor 60mm. It is compact, beautifully made, lightning fast to focus and sharp as a tack. The equivalent lens for our Canon 40D is the Canon macro EF-S 60mm f2.8 and it is also a beauty. Sigma, Tokina and Tamron all make outstanding 100mm macro lenses.

However, we have fallen in love. The object of our fickle affection is the new Olympus Zuiko 150mm f2 lens. (300mm film equivalent – focal length multiplication is 2X with the Four Thirds system.)

This superb lens is compact and fast. Resolution is excellent and images are sharp with good colour and contrast. It is a compact 160mm in length and it is heavy because it contains a lot of glass and mechanicals.

We took it to the Zoo and had the best day ever photographing the animals in what look like close-ups. We have never seen a zoom lens of comparable focal length that can give these results. Sadly it will only fit an Olympus or a Panasonic/Leica. And it costs $3470!

The moral of the story is this: before being seduced by the camera-two-lens bargain kit think carefully about what you are getting. A camera body plus one good 60mm macro prime beats two indifferent zooms any day.

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Posted by terry at 05:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 16, 2008

[ PANASONIC LUMIX L10 digital SLR ]

Price: $2199

A decent camera at a high price

The low-down: This is Panasonic’s second digital SLR. Like the L1 it is built around the Four Thirds system with a 10 megapixel sensor and a Leica 14–50mm image stabilised lens (28–100 film equivalent). Lens construction is plastic but the operation of the zoom and manual focus is smooth and well damped. The LCD screen swivels, which is a good feature, and there is live view, so that the LCD can be used as a viewfinder. The ergonomics are good, but there is no body-top camera status display. However all the important adjustments are accessible without going into the menu. The viewfinder is a little small and dim compared with the Canon/Nikon competition.

Like: Focus is quick and accurate and, as seems to be the case with the Four Thirds system, there is slightly greater depth of field at any given focal length. Resolution of lens and sensor is good. Colour rendition is very good, particularly of solid primary colours where there is no trace of colour bleed obscuring fine details.

Dislike: Dynamic range is poor and image noise at ISO settings above 800 is seriously intrusive. We noticed that Olympus seem to do better in controlling noise from the same sensor. We have a reservation about the price. A comparable Olympus E-510 costs $1500.

Verdict: The physics of the Four Thirds system involves matching lenses to sensor in an arrangement that is ideal for digital cameras. The claim is that digital SLRs that are adaptations of film cameras involve unacceptable compromises, because light needs to strike an electronic cell at a different angle from film. The drawback with the system is firstly that the Four Thirds sensor is smaller than the APS-C size unit in other DSLRs, and second, that the aspect ratio is 4:3 rather than 3:2. The Panasonic has selectable aspect ratios and 3:2 (the AR of a standard photo print) can be set, but that means reducing the pixel dimensions. Smaller sensors also mean more noise. But in favour of Four Thirds is that it is an “open” system – all Panasonic/Leica lenses will work on Olympus cameras and vice versa.

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Posted by terry at 09:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack