- 04
- Jul
Sorry to be off topic here, but you still have TODAYS PHOTOS to help you with your Japan fix. I apologize for the divergence, but I had to share some things with all of you out there.
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A couple of days ago I upgraded my browser to Firefox 3. Version 2 was not really giving me any troubles, but I figured that having the latest version could not hurt.
During the install process I explored some of the new features of Firefox 3, and one of the new add-on features is called PicLens . I don’t usually install add-on features to my browser, but the fact that this one seemed photo-related, it caught my interest.
All I can say is that if you enjoy browsing photos or videos on sites such as Flickr or YouTube, you NEED PicLens. It makes browsing photos and videos an incredibly intuitive and enjoyable experience. I have no doubt that PicLens will very quickly become widely recognized and used by many. It really is that good.
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As many of you who have been following this blog for a while know, I have been through a fair number of cameras in the past 8 years. Everything from small pocket point and shoot models all the way up to state of the art pro SLRs. I mainly shoot with SLRs, but at times I would much prefer to have a smaller camera that still takes great photos. This is the main reason why I bought an Epson R-D1. It’s a rather compact camera, and the lenses are for the most part very compact and of high quality. The only thing it lacks is auto focus and auto aperture control. I don’t mind shooting manually, but at times I would prefer a camera with the size of a compact point and shoot camera, but the ease and versatility of a DSLR.
My purchase of a Nikon D40 was a step in that direction. At the time I bought it, it was the smallest DSLR on the market. The problem is that the lenses are no smaller than a standard SLRs lenses, so its not really very compact.
So what is a guy to do?
Enter the Olympus E420.
The E420 is an iteration of the E410. It is an extremely compact DLSR, and since it forgoes the traditional bulging hand grip, the form factor of the camera is reduced considerably. It seems Olympus is getting back to its 1970’s roots of extremely compact SLRs. But what makes this camera a real joy is the new Zuiko 25mm f2.8 pancake lens. When this lens is coupled to an E420 body, the result is the smallest, lightest DSLR/lens set in the world. 25mm sounds kind of wide, but the fact that the Olympus 4/3rds sensor has a 2x crop factor, this equates to a 50mm field of view.
Just to give you a rough idea of how compact this setup is, here is a photo that shows an E420 with 25mm lens (50mm equivalent) compared to a Canon 5D with a 50mm lens.
Here is a photo that shows an E420 with 25mm lens (50mm equivalent) compared to an Epson R-D1 with 35mm f2 lens.
I can already see that the image quality of the E420 is not on par with the 5D (and I don’t expect it to be at the given price point ). The images are noisier than what I am used to out of a DSLR, but still quite a bit ahead of what your standard point and shoot digital camera can produce. (Not counting the fixed focal length 28mm f4 Sigma DP1, which I don’t count as a "standard" point and shoot camera due to its larger imaging sensor ) Of particular note to me was the limited highlight recovery headroom on the E420’s RAW files. I am just not able to extract as much detail from the blown highlight areas of the E420 files the same as I can from Canon RAW files. At the moment Adobe Camera RAW does not support the E420 Olympus RAW format, so hopefully that when this support is added the ability to extract more detail from the RAW files will be improved.
So there you have it. The E420 is not a perfect camera (I’ve yet to use a PERFECT camera.. .), and it’s main warts appear to be higher image noise that I am used to from a DSLR (due to the smaller image sensor and the Olympus file processing algorithms ) and limited amount of RAW headroom. But, compared to any other compact auto focus digital camera I have used, it’s still way ahead of the game.
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A recent leak on the new, yet to be released, Nikon DSLR (D700) shows that it stands to be a really stellar camera. Basically, it’s a Nikon D300 body with the same image sensor as the D3. Canon better respond with something special with their much anticipated 5D replacement, otherwise they stand to lose a lot of users to Nikon.
For years Canon has been in the lead in the DLSR department, but the D300 and D3 have started to change this. The D700 could provide enough momentum for Nikon for it to become the tipping point product where Nikon becomes top dog in the DLSR world.
I love competition like this, as it benefits all of us who buy cameras.
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