Just bought an olympus E-3

gavinlg

gavinlg

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Sweet, when I get some cash I'm going to get the 420 for my wife. While I'm a vocal advocate for fullframe cameras, the Oly line up always made me look twice, all those adapters for various lenses 🙂. Let us know how you like it.
 
Athos6 said:
Sweet, when I get some cash I'm going to get the 420 for my wife. While I'm a vocal advocate for fullframe cameras, the Oly line up always made me look twice, all those adapters for various lenses 🙂. Let us know how you like it.
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I really like the fact that with the olympus system, everything is "full frame" as is. There are no crop factors to deal with, and all the lenses work as intended. I'm also super interested in doing some serious work with the 4:3 aspect ratio - it's almost like a 6x4.5 MF ratio.

I'm drooling over that zuiko 150 f2 in the 3rd pic in the first post.
 
Congratulations. I do hope you enjoy it.

I bought one and used it for a couple of days and have to say I had a few problems with focus and general QC. As an E1 owner and long time Oly fan I had high expectations, but the E3 just didn't deliver. I ended up taking it back and buying a Canon 5D 24-105 kit. I still have my E1, an E400 and quite a few Zuiko digital lenses and they still get used. However, the 5D is streets ahead of the E3 in terms of IQ and noise. The really daft thing is that I could buy a 5D and 24 -105 for less money than an E3 and 12-60.

Apologies if I am p***** on your bonfire. Just make sure you check it out thoroughly when you get it.
 
I would be interested in your observations about the camera. I recently converted to the 4/3 system and I own a Lumix L1 and an Olympus E1. I really like both cameras and the E1 has really been a lot of fun. So let us know what you think about the E3.
 
Gid said:
Congratulations. I do hope you enjoy it.

I bought one and used it for a couple of days and have to say I had a few problems with focus and general QC. As an E1 owner and long time Oly fan I had high expectations, but the E3 just didn't deliver. I ended up taking it back and buying a Canon 5D 24-105 kit. I still have my E1, an E400 and quite a few Zuiko digital lenses and they still get used. However, the 5D is streets ahead of the E3 in terms of IQ and noise. The really daft thing is that I could buy a 5D and 24 -105 for less money than an E3 and 12-60.

Apologies if I am p***** on your bonfire. Just make sure you check it out thoroughly when you get it.
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Yeah they had a few niggles with some of the cameras in the first batches -there's a lot of new tech that oly put on the e-3 so I guess it's inevitable. It's the same with every camera though - the d300 has "dead battery syndrome", the 1d mk3 has crappy autofocus that doesn't work properly half the time, the K20d has bad stuck pixels at certain shutter speeds....
I've been following the e-3 since it came out - as far as I can see they're past their quality problems with it now - no one seems to be complaining anymore.

At the start of this year I was actually using the 5d - amazing camera but I wouldn't say it's too far ahead of the olympus digitals... especially with lenses. my e-410 with kit lens was just shy of equalling my 5d with 17-40f4L in my testing - but in all cases of testing corner sharpness was better.

The kicker with the e-3 is that I can get the leica summilux 25 1.4, and also have around 2-3 stops Image Stabilization from the sensor based unit, so the high ISO noise thing isn't too bad. I remember a few months ago looking at a journalists portfolio of war scenes in the Middle East. He had the most amazing action shots of soldiers and locals around twilight taken with the E-1 at around 800-1600iso. Sure they were grainy, but if anything it actually added to the feel of the photograph.

Something I do is concentrate too much on gear, and not enough on actually taking good photographs. Half the reason I've bought the e-3 is because the 12-60 ZD lens is excellent, the system is excellent - there are no excuses for me not to take good photographs. I don't have to worry about corner softness or flare or characteristics of lenses, and I don't have to buy 4-5 prime lenses to get the image quality I need. The oly zooms are actually better than most nikkor and canon primes.

Anyways as it stands I will definitely be putting it through some paces when I get it to check it's all working well. 😎
 
Gid said:
Focus was very hit and miss - I'm used to the E1 delivering results 99.9% of the time - if it says it is in focus it will be. The E3 just didn't do it, regardless of which focus point or exposure setting I used (I had already checked all the E3 threads and was aware of potential problems and possible workarounds) This was experienced by a lot of early adopters and I wasn't an early adopter. However, reported problems seem to be reducing, so maybe they've got this sorted.

To be fair I should have said quality, not quality control (QC). The camera just doesn't feel as well put together or as well thought out as the E1. That was my major disappointment. I wanted it to be a great camera, but its just an OK camera IMO. I actually prefer the E400 to the E3 (apart from its stupidly large raw files).
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I'm not going to lie to you.... In comparison to both my old d300 and my old 5d the E-3 is much better built. From first impressions anyway. I just read something about a guy that had one fall over onto some rocks from a decent height, and then fall into a river where it came to rest about a meter down. The guy scrambled into the river, picked the camera up, and everything was fine. He then (god knows why) proceeded to dunk the camera underwater with live view on, and snap a few shots under water. The camera still worked fine. Apparently after a few days he was getting some condensation in the finder but it's still working perfect to this day....
 
fdigital said:
I just read something about a guy that had one fall over onto some rocks from a decent height, and then fall into a river where it came to rest about a meter down. The guy scrambled into the river, picked the camera up, and everything was fine. He then (god knows why) proceeded to dunk the camera underwater with live view on, and snap a few shots under water.
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That guy must be nuts, or that's not his (paid) camera 😀

I've seen a set of pictures of a photo-shoot session where the photographer came in and out of a waterfall with his E-3 in his hand.
 
IT'S HERE!!!

In the last 2-3 years I've had the following cameras: canon rebel/350d, canon 30d, canon 1d, canon 5d, nikon d300, olympus e-410, and NONE of them, not even the d300 have excited me as much as this E-3.

It's been charging now for a couple of hours - I know that on first time most batteries should be charged completely before use, but I was too excited and popped the 3/4 charged sucker in to take a few quick shots.

I'll make a new thread soon with a little more comprehensive review but here is a quick first impressions:

The camera feels extremely good in my hands - all the buttons seemed to be placed exactly where I want them. Something that irritated me with the d300 was that stupid position for the iso button on the left top side, on top of the drive mode dial. I couldn't get used to pressing it without having to look at it first. The E-3 has it placed on the far right side of the camera near the shutter button so it's intuitive straight off the bat.
To me it feels much nicer than the d300, and much nicer than the brick 5d. It's definitely built like a tank.

The finder is HUGE and very high quality. I'm pretty sure it's bigger than my FM2n finder. It seems a lot bigger and brighter than the d300 finder although on paper they are supposed to be around the same size.

The 12-60 lens is built beautifully - it makes the nikkor 18-200 seem like a piece of crap in comparison. The zoom ring is consistent in feel and the focus ring is nicely dampened and solid. If you zoom the lens in and out quickly you can hear the weather sealing in the barrel, which is reassuring.

After popping the battery in and setting the e-3 to RAW, I got my girlfriend to pose for some quick shots by the window in my bedroom. So here are 3 - each are shot in RAW with NO noise reduction and only mild sharpening. No color correction or added saturation, no added contrast or pulled highlights. Pretty much as it comes out of the camera. All with the zuiko 12-60 SWD lens, and image stabilization on.

f3.4, 1/50th, ISO 400
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f3.6, 1/30th, ISO 800
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f4.0, 1/50th, ISO 1000
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My observations based on these images:
- Image Stabilization is VERY effective. All three were below 1/60th and are tack sharp.
- The 12-60 Zuiko seems to be extremely sharp
- The cameras handling of tones seems to be excellent
- The high ISO noise thing is overblown. The ISO 1000 shot is not noisy in the slightest.
- Skin tones seem to be much better than D300
- The sound of the shutter is extremely pleasing to my ears. I actually pressed it a few times just to hear it again. It's very very quiet and very "snickety snick"
- Focussing was ridiculously fast
- I can't WAIT to do some more testing!!!
 
Mate you got to be happy with that colour. I was trying to fall in love with the e3 at pma, but I just could not work it out, it was like trying to drive a C@n*n, which disappointed me after my experience having an e10 years ago. But that colour is sweet and the 4/3 aspect is tempting, at least for my high volume studio work.
So you're a Brisbanite too!! I have been noticing a few of us on these forums.
 
This camera looks like a lovely piece of Kit. I have held one and played with it and was surpriced at how substantial it feels in the hand. This impressed me as I have a preference for weighty cameras with a feeling of solidity. This one has it. I think I would however that if I were going to spend this kind of money, I would prefer to buy a Nikon D300 if only because of the wider range of top quality lenses available for it. Never the less it is a darn fine camera. (Having said that, rather than upgrade my now antiquated D70s to a D200/300 I bought a Panasonic L1 which at one level is rather wasteful as I now have two top rated bodies to choose from. Still its another toy to play with.)
 
Andrew Howes said:
Mate you got to be happy with that colour. I was trying to fall in love with the e3 at pma, but I just could not work it out, it was like trying to drive a C@n*n, which disappointed me after my experience having an e10 years ago. But that colour is sweet and the 4/3 aspect is tempting, at least for my high volume studio work.
So you're a Brisbanite too!! I have been noticing a few of us on these forums.
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Hey Andrew - I'm actually from the Sunshine coast but it's only 50 minutes or so away. I was at PMA as well. Had a play with all the nikons and olympus's. Was having serious trouble with the E-3s exposing funny until I realized that all the custom settings had been changed and mucked around with. 3 of the 4 or 5 cameras on display also had exposure bracketing turned on - which was why I was having trouble. It's nice to start with a brand new untouched one though. 30 minutes with it and it's all set up to my liking and seems to be working flawlessly.

I have to say that the color this camera is putting out is absolutely outstanding. In that respect, it leaves the d300 for dead.
 
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