Olympus E3 Review

With the release of the new professional grade E3, Olympus has signaled their re-entry into the pro market after allowing their last top-pro body, the E1, to become vastly out-speced by the competition over its 4 year life-span.

Eagerly anticipated by the Olympus faithful, I was given an opportunity by Olympus Canada to try out the E3 over the Christmas Holidays and although this is a traditionally slow time of year for assignments, it is rich in family and holiday moments that provide personal photo opportunities. Let�s see how the E3 fared.

It�s been an interesting year for Olympus on the DSLR front with the release of three different camera models (E3, E510, E410), a couple of great new lenses (the 12-60mm ED w/ 24-120mm equiv. focal length, the 70-300mm ED w/ 140-600mm equiv. focal length, and two new small lightwieght ED kit lenses with very high quality that will take you from 28-300mm equiv. focal length).

They also introduced an ultra fast ring focusing mechanism in the 12-60mm f2.8 lens that features not one, but two SWD ring type driving motors for increased focusing speed and better stopping power, to yield greater focusing accuracy. This feature will be extended further through the lens lineup with the 50-200mm 2.8-3.5 SWD lens due out in the early part of 2008. With the 2X crop factor this is a 100-400mm equiv.

And to top things off Olympus released their first two wireless flash units, and a brand new high speed focusing module for the E3 that in one fell swoop managed to leap-frog several evolutionary advances by the competition in this market segment.

All in all, 2007 was a big step forward for the company in solidifying the Four Thirds standard as a viable alternative to APS-C cameras for the advanced enthusiast and pro market. They got noise under control while maintaining image sharpness and quality, and finally matched the competition in the major system design areas of focusing and viewfinder image.

Douglas Brown

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