Latest Gallery:
This has been a long wait: in a market where the life of a digital camera can be measured in months rather than years, the three year wait for Olympus' follow-up to their i* (where * can be either '-conic' or '-diosyncratic', according to your taste) E-1 DSLR has been an ice age. While competitors' cameras, and even Olympus' own consumer DSLRs have leapt ahead in resolution and specification, the E-1 has soldiered on with its modest 5 Megapixel sensor and tank-like build quality, continuing to delight those of us who value a photographer's camera over one designed to tick specification checkboxes. That's something of an Olympus tradition – like that other industry iconoclast, Apple, Olympus have rarely headlined on numbers, but have usually delivered where it counts: build quality, lens quality and sheer usability - I'm actually sitting here with my heirloom Olympus OM-2n beside me, rediscovering just what a joy it is to hold and use – I really do believe that cameras that feel the product of precision engineering by people who care inspire better image creation than those that come across as marketing-led, cost-driven consumer electronics. So does the new 10MP E-3 fall into that most desirable of categories?
Firstly though, a small disclaimer: This isn't a press review camera but my own beast, purchased with semi-real money. Nor is this intended to be a 'numbers and menus' review - life being far too short for that – but rather my first impressions of it and how it performs in daily use.
I've also have had a Canon EOS 5D on hand, so I'm now working on some comparisons with that, for publication as soon as I can set some Photoshopping time aside.
