e-420 first impressions...

Raist3d said:

So I decided to go ahead, get one. I started to get scared that they
were going to be out of stock for an important event I need one for,
as I see BHPhoto is not out of stock on them, though the body only
and pancake kits are not around.

Anyone interested in a 14-42 e-410/420/510 kit lens? e-mail me,
because I have two of those now.

Impressions:

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Please feel free to criticize, make suggestions, and edit any of my photos & re-post, to help show me 'the way'. * I am trying to Elevate the Level of my 'Snap Shots'
Guess I will need a pic of my e510 soon ...

no text

Raist3d said:

Member said:

Just like the e-410's. This in my book means sharp and bright, a bit bigger than the e-330's/e-300/e-500. Same size of the e-510's.

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Raist,

Thanks for the very detailed report. Allow me to make a single remark:

Of all Olympus consumer SLRs, the E-300 had the largest viewfinder, larger than the rest by a (linear) factor of 1.2 . This is definitely the case, if compared with an E-510. I assume that this has not changed with the E-420.
Regards, Herbert

http://www.pbase.com/herbRD
Olympus E-330, Sony H1, Sony S600, Olympus C-2020 (IR)

Great to have your thoughts on each of these points, do you mind if we include them in our report? (credited to yourself of course)

Kind Regards

Brian
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Coming soon, our March Safari Group Field Report from the National Parrot Sanctuary

Check out David Baron's Safari Group Field Report from Namibia :
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=27211847

First, congratulations on your purchase.

Thanks for the detailed review and for taking your time to give your impressions based on the Questions in Brian's thread.

I may be alone but I'm not surprised that you'll be selling the E-3. I was very surprised when I'd read that you'd gotten one. You've always impressed me as a small camera user based on your style. Were I in a position to get an E-3, I'd have already sent you an e-mail.
Again, thank you for your time and effort.
--
Troll Whisperer
Bill Turner

Recent Images:
Please do not edit my images without asking permission.
Thanks.
http://www.pbase.com/wmdt131

Brian Mosley said:

Great to have your thoughts on each of these points, do you mind if
we include them in our report? (credited to yourself of course)

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No, go ahead, no prob.

BTW, I answered them here because it seemed to me the original thread was approaching limit, just want to make clear didn't mean to "hi jack" it. THanks for posting/collecting all the questions.

I need to post pics but I am very busy :-

Brian Mosley said:

Kind Regards

Brian
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Coming soon, our March Safari Group Field Report from the National
Parrot Sanctuary

Check out David Baron's Safari Group Field Report from Namibia :
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=27211847

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Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

The shots don't have the note but they are (C) 2008 Ricardo Hernández-Machado (that's me!). I need to set up the new alpha mask/bitmaps for Aperture.

Please note these were taken with the 14-42 kit lens. I was surprised that it seemed to handle color better, probably Olympus tweaked the e-420 for those kit lenses. I still think the camera will do even better with a higher grade lens color/contrast wise. Someone posted the first 14-35 F2 super high grade lens shots and one thing that struck me was the handling of light. I do think there's a difference.

But I still there these are cool. These were snaps, I wasn't attempting much at a shot:







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Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

I actually used the camera contrast AF, and set the focus point to the leftmost point (you have like 11 points I think it is). That way I could aim the lens/camera mostly at my co-worker but I wanted to focus on her... and it worked

There you go: one unique "stealthy" use of live view. I thought she had an interesting expression. You can't focus in live view contrast AF right away if she has a particular expression but you can prefocus and reduce the delay.

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Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

This was in natural mode, no tweaks and and are jpegs out of the camera.

They are also program-auto, noise filter off (not that it will make a difference at this size ), live view taken shots in contrast AF. SAT was on.

I put away the included kit lens as I am selling it, and upgraded the e-410 dual kit lenses I already had- they all work to e-420 specs now.

--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

I was able to use an E420 with 25mm pancake for about 10 minutes at a recent Olympus demo day in the Uk.

I can only support Raist's comments on the improved image quality as even in mixed lighting the exposure and white balance were spot on and even at ISO 1600 colours and detail were excellent with noise only in the shadow areas and hardly vsisble when printed at A4 size. (noise filter at Standard).

With the little pancake lens the camera handled like a dream in my small hands and all that is really missing is IS.

It looks like Olympus have finally realised that small can be good not just cheap with the result that build quality is up and menu options no longer reduced. i.e this is defintely now a serious camera but also a great point and shoot one for any skill level as well. Also bodes well for the E520.

Hopefully Olympus will now give us a 600gm and compact E4 instead of the brick called the E3, which I am convinced was a wrong direction for Olympus as well as 6 months too late to market.

Charlie Fox
London UK E1 & E330 14-54 & 50-200

When I said the DR was pretty close is according to a test I did last night that involved a tungsten but with more cold emitting light, using the 14-54 and same exposure in my hallway at home. Had to do this more than pixel peeping, because I want to make sure the e-420 can handle shooting in a wedding as well as the e-3. IT seems like it can... but:

• Since I have not tested in daylight and I won't be able to after today, I don't want to discard the E-3 may perform better in full spectrum light or such. I doubt it, this is highly unlikely there will be a difference, but you just never know- could have a weird filter/blue crystals/whatever.

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Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

just going for the artistic gut :
1-2 are nothing special
3 is kinda nice.

(Also a good use of LV with specific focus point, as explained in your post)

(When I do something like this, I still use center-point (my default), but I sometimes pretend to be fiddling with controls while half-pressing for focus, and then I actually compose.)

(There have even been occasions where I had the camera under my crossed arms and dangling, me looking to the right while shooting to the left with the silent E-3 shutter and composing blindly. That works out right sometimes. Example to be included in E-3 User Field Reports for Brian's UK Photo Safari Group, so I keep that under wraps for now...)
Roel

RoelHendrickx said:

just going for the artistic gut :
1-2 are nothing special
3 is kinda nice.

Click to expand...

Agreed, these are all snapshots I like his expression in #2 though and agreed, I like #3.

RoelHendrickx said:

(Also a good use of LV with specific focus point, as explained in
your post)

(When I do something like this, I still use center-point (my
default), but I sometimes pretend to be fiddling with controls while
half-pressing for focus, and then I actually compose.)
(There have even been occasions where I had the camera under my
crossed arms and dangling, me looking to the right while shooting to
the left with the silent E-3 shutter and composing blindly. That
works out right sometimes. Example to be included in E-3 User Field
Reports for Brian's UK Photo Safari Group, so I keep that under wraps
for now...)

Click to expand...

Well the E-3 has articulated live view.. it's very easy to pretend you are doing something else. Fortunately the e-420's LCD can be seen much better at an angle in light, so with some effort you can still keep some of that angled- shooting, but the E_3 wins here for sure.

RoelHendrickx said:

Roel

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--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

puts it in a class by itself, well above the market it is priced at.

Let's see how many reviewers skip this incredibly professional feature, impossible to pack in that price bracket at that side and strike it off as "not so important."

This is Olympus speaking to the professional here saying "yeah, you can with the little one too."

Now, if we could just add weather sealing.. Hmm...

--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

Danko said:

Raist,

Thanks again for very interesting info about camera and again with
question

To get the best from 410 you need properly set it: NR off, sharpness
-2, etc… What about 420, do you feel the default setting are the best
or you have to tweak little (consider the answer as an advise to
potential user of the camera).

Click to expand...

The default settings are good to go, but I would turn noise filter off because I want the max detail and I don't consider good grain "bad noise."

The noise filter is now E-3 alike- not as destructive as the e-410/e-510's are, where even at low you get a big loss.

Danko said:

And enjoy your new camera

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Thanks!

Danko said:

--
Bohdan, CP 3100

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--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

Shi Yali said:

Raist3d said:

Shi Yali said:

Thank you for these detailed observations. Very helpful. So, which
liveview mode is the fastest and most "compact-like"?

Click to expand...

Not sure what is the question you are asking me... you mean from the
hybrid, pure AF sensor and contrast AF? Hmm contrast AF is the most
compact like but it's not very fast. Hybrid is kinda weird. I would
say the lens you put in makes the difference on these.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have asked which mode is the fastest and acceptably
accurate (with the 14-42 kit lens)

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Live view mode wise? That really depends on your speed needs. I find the contrast AF is accurate, it's just slow. Hybrid will be slower since it has to re-focus after the contrast AF. Probably the fastest would be the e-410 one but if you are prefocusing first, then the new contrast AF.

The big win of the new contrast AF one is that you get rid of the rather shutter lag from the moment you know you want to take the shot and the screen blanks.. now you can wait for the moment watching the LCD then snap- there will be unfortunately a lag there but it will be faster.

--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

LaMesa said:

Of all Olympus consumer SLRs, the E-300 had the largest viewfinder, larger than the rest by a (linear) factor of 1.2

Click to expand...

Where does that linear factor of 1.2 come from? The E-300 VF mag was 1x, with 94% coverage; the E-410, -510 and -420 are all 0.92x with slightly better 95% coverage. The E-300 VF image was the bigger, but by a factor of 1/0.92 or about 1.08, not 1.2. The image area factor is about 1.2.
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I want all my lenses to be f/4 or brighter.

Bigger pixels are useless if they mean I need longer, slower telephoto lenses to get the same resolution with the same weight and cost.

Raist3d said:

puts it in a class by itself, well above the market it is priced at.

Let's see how many reviewers skip this incredibly professional
feature, impossible to pack in that price bracket at that side and
strike it off as "not so important."

Click to expand...

I dunno. Olympus has it in the lower market niche as well (the SP-560UZ and SP-570UZ have it also). I thought some of the Canon and Nikon p&s's could use remote flash also, possibly with a command module, possibly not.

While I don't have it, I really don't see what is all that professional about it. If anything, it tends to strike me more as a wanna-bee gearhead feature, than a professional feature. The standard studio portrait setups will continue to use studio strobes like they always have. The PJ on the run will use only on camera flash because she doesn't have time to setup lights. Anybody shooting in an outdoor setting or a large venue will quickly run into the problem of making sure the lights all see the commander flash, and will likely either use single camera flash or continue to use studio strobes with pocket wizards. The only professionals that I can see that would actually use FL-50R's on a day to day basis are the people that pop into executive offices and do the 5 minute setup to take a headshot. If you have another professional use that would use multiple FL-50R's in a normal setting, I would love to hear about it.

Member said:

This is Olympus speaking to the professional here saying "yeah, you
can with the little one too."

Now, if we could just add weather sealing.. Hmm...

Click to expand...

I tend to think it goes against the design concept of the E-420. If you want a tank with all of the protection, you know where it is.

Raist3d said:

Member said:

Well the E-3 has articulated live view.. it's very easy to pretend

Click to expand...

you are doing something else. Fortunately the e-420's LCD can be
seen much better at an angle in light, so with some effort you can
still keep some of that angled- shooting, but the E_3 wins here for
sure.

Click to expand...

Ricardo,
for this shot I was looking at or through nothing at all :



Just let the camera dangle and aim blindly while looking the other way (shot in a small tunisian cafe along the way; I was struck by the contrast of those guys beneath the David Beckham poster)
Roel

That's what I want to do when I get that pancake.... shoot Leica style(tm)

Know what owuld be gret? If Olympus did a firmware upgrade where they put in big numbers on the LCD the focal distance you are focusing at manually. That would be great. I wish the kit lenses had that info, but they have to be kit lenses...

--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'