1) Lenses - OK, Ad - Canon.
agreed, oly lenses are nice light and fast but lens selection right
now still belongs to eos system
2) Body - When I look at the picture of the 10D vs the E-1 on this
site, I come away with the feeling that the 10D is going to look
and feel like a Rebel. It just looks cheap. Whereas the E-1 just
plain looks good. Looks well-built. And from all reviews I've read
the build quality is top notch. And it has all those splash proof
seals. Gotta love that. Ad - Oly
Agreed, reading the reviews it's apparent the Oly body is built
like the higher end pro cameras but I vehemently disagree with your
rebel analogy, the 10d is a very well made camera.
3) Price - everybody has been talking about how pricey the E-1 is.
MSRP right now is $2199. But what was the MSRP of the 10D when it
was introduced? Answer - $1999. Difference of $200. Street price
of the Canon is now about $1599? I wonder what the street price of
the E-1 will be around or after Xmas this year? Ad - Canon,
assuming the 10D is an equal camera.
Disagree, the canon is now $1400 in some areas, the 3d is coming
out and the price of the 10d will drop even further, you also have
to remember even if the demand for the e1 is high if Olympus can't
keep w production then price will remain high plus Olympus is
pretty harsh when it comes to pricing, if you want to add a battery
grip, that's $500, another $500 for the top of the line flash,
that's close to $3000 for a camera system with only four available
lenses at launch. I've so far seen two images from the e1, not bad
but nothing mind blowing either, good noise control though but lets
see how it does at the higher isos.
4) Sensor - Interline CMOS at 6.3 MP vs Frame-Transfer CCD at 5.1
MP. Sounds like adv Canon at first thought. But - how much of the
Canon sensor is actually 'wasted' due to 'typical' cropping of a
35mm sized slide or neg?
Your forgetting that people also these for printing, design and
publication, not all image files are destined for the 8x10 format,
it's better to start with a larger file always for more flexibility.
And what about losses to vignetting or
edge loss-of-sharpness due to lenses designed to work with 35mm
film?
Only the sharpest central portion of the lens is used, this point
is moot.
I won't do any calculations here, but I'd say the effective
pixel count is about even.
No, that's stretching it, 18mb vs 14mb is still significant, and if
you shoot raw it's even bigger, does Olympus have a raw format?
Tiffs take too long to write and take up too much space.
But, according to the specs published
by Oly and Kodak, this sensor chip has other advantages over the
IL-CMOS in the Canon. EG: better dynamic range, less noice, much
faster transfer rate etc. I'm giving an Ad - Oly here based on
specs.
These arent specs, these are marketing claims, I don't think you
can make a verdict at this point because the claims haven't been
verified by third parties. For all you know Olympus is making these
claims against their old exx series which had the same designed for
digital lens.
5)' Features'
Oly has a dust-cleaning mechanism. Canon No. Ad
Agreed, but no one knows if it works yet though.
Auto-focus. Canon 7-area, Oly 3. Based on rep alone Ad -
Canon
agreed
Files: Oly can do TIFF, Canon No.
10d has auto=rotate, Oly no.
Ad - Oly
Frame rate. Both 3fps, but Oly 12 continuous at any size Ad- Oly
agreed
Metering. Similar, xcept E-1 has 1.8 spot.
Ad - Oly
Hmmm...agreed
Flash: Canon has built-in, E-1 No
Ad - Canon
No big deal
Sync speeds appx same, but E-1 syncs to 1/4000 w/FL-50 Ad - Oly
So does Canon, it's a tie and for a pro camera the sync speed is
fairly slow
Shutter: 30-1/4000 for Can, 60-1/4000 for Oly Ad
Huh? How? Isn't a 60 second exposure better than 30>
6) Other stuff:
Olympus has better viewfinder and interchangeable screens.
Ad-oly
Canon's LCD allow 10x zoom on playback to E-1s 4x but E-1 has more
playback modes and more pixels.
Based on preference, to some the 10x zoom is more important than
playback modes.
call it a tie or cancel it.
E-1 has 128MByte buffer built. No spec for the Canon
Ad Oly
Oly supports usb 2.0, Canon 1.1 Oly also supports Firewire.
moot for many people, they use card readers
E-1 has more drive modes and a wireless remote.
Canon 10d has ai servo.ai focus tracking, more and cheaper
accessories,
E-1 is smaller and lighter (660 gr vs 790gr) and with lenses this
advantage will be more pronounced in Olympus' favor.
Some prefer heavier cameras for stability, pure preference
There's lots more but I gotta stop here.
Conclusion, IMHO, the E-1 is more of a professional camera than the
10D.
That's based on body specs and features alone, image quality does
not blow the 10d away.
So to answer your question the reason is that you want a bright viewfinder and there is already light being split away from the rest of the system to be used for metering and AF. There are also battery concerns. But the biggest is that they give you nice bright TTL viewfinder making live preview redundant.
