Olympus E-420 Review

Olympus announced the entry-level E-420 Four Thirds system DSLR in conjunction with a Zuiko Digital 25mm 1:2.8 'pancake' lens equivalent to a 50mm on a 35mm model and has been sending that out with its review samples. While ideally suited for portraiture, the flagging up of new lens alongside camera raises the suspicion that there's no actually too much that's exciting about the 'new' E-420 � despite the new model's very competitive �330 body-only price point in the UK (by way of comparison the E-410 retailed for around �500 this time last year). Whilst it still offers a compact and lightweight chassis that's ideal for lugging the E-420 around abroad � and in fact I took the camera to Japan for the duration of our test where it nestled unobtrusively and comfortably in my shoulder bag � that alone wouldn't nudge me toward packing the camera in preference to say its direct competitors, the Canon's EOS-450D or Nikon's D60.

Though there are various under-the-bonnet performance tweaks which we'll come to later, it at first appears Olympus has rather taken a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach to this user-friendly upgrade � and is claiming anyone can be up and shooting with the camera without needing to crib from the manual. Just as well, as Olympus had neglected to include one with our review sample. For the record, like its E-410 predecessor you get continuous Live View on the LCD, which has increased in size from 2.5-inches to 2.7-inches and with the same 230k dot resolution, as one of the camera's specification highlights, aside from the now standard (at the entry-level) 10 effective megapixels resolution, the same again as that offered by the E-410. You also get 28 shooting modes in total while dual slots for both XD and Compactflash make a return, as does Olympus' grandly named Supersonic Wave Filter dust prevention system. Although this is active on start up, it thankfully doesn't noticeably delay proceedings and you can firing off your first image in just over a second which is fast enough for any consumer DSLR.

Gavin Stoker

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