erichK
Veteran Member
Countless professionals will tell you that "its all about the glass!
The E-1 is really good body . You'd have to pay $3K-$5K to get an equally weatherproof, rugged, 100% viewfinder, 150,000 shutter-cycle instrument with sealed and secure and weatherproof controls from any other maker. And the colours and IQ are outstanding straight out of the camera. The Autofocus is relatively simple and slow, and the metering and flasg functions too, are dated, and more resolution is needed for some really large (beyond A3) prints But as the image gallerieas of Lauri Sippu and countless others demostrate, a good photographer can do great work with this camera in most areas. Admittedly, sports, available light and some types of photojournalism are not its forte.
No secret here. Their top man at the official Press conference said that they simply could not make enough of them, to also sell them, in North America, or even Japan and the Far East (very likely because of a limited run of the new sensors). That is--he almost said this directly--that they had to produce something for Europe's Photokina, and wanted to include more updates and features, but these could not be reliably finished in time. He promised that an improved version of the E-400, to be released around PMA that would be worth the wait.
The 10MP E-400 IQ looks really great (see Mark's posts), the exposure metering is more sophisticated and the AF somewhat better. There are companies in Netherlands and Germany that you could order one from, though you may choose to wait for the new version.
The E-pro version, for all the reasons given in a German interview with a couple of Euro Olympus heads, does have a more "chewing gum" (their words) date of arrival. They admitted that Oly had hoped to get a prototype out for Photokina, but are having to work on it further for a number of reasons: the multiple-module compatibility and extremely high level of reliability, performance --they actually specifically mentiones noise performance-- expected of such a device. They stated that while it would be on the market in 2007, and before December 2007, they could not commit themselved further. (likely for fear of being lynched!)
Try one, if you possibly can, or buy it with a return option. I'd loan you mine, if you were in my area.
Thanks for the recommendation. Do you then "de-fisheye" the images? I have the 11-22 and would occasionally like wider, but the 7-14, although it is an outstanding and unique pro lens is a bit slow and big and heavy and expensive me.
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erichK
saskatoon, canada
