Is this a Rangefinder?

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nickchew

Guest
I've been away for too long...

Just wondering what you all think.
Can the new olympus 330 be technically classified as a rangefinder?

It has a separate CCD (viewfinder) which allows live viewing and composing. And another CCD (film) that records the picture.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse330/

How about it, honorary member of rangefinder family?

Nick
 
A rangefinder is defined by its focusing system: a usually-squareish area in the center of the viewfinder that moves back and forth to show the user where the lens is focused on.

The E-330 is a almost-normal, middle-of-the-road, Digital SLR.
 
It has a mirror and you view through the lens.

Hm, single lens, reflex viewfinder, mirror, could be a SLR :)
 
Short Answer: no.

Slightly Longer Answer: most real RFs, even the lone digital RF available so far (Epson RD-1/1s) won't leave you pulling your hair out learning its fundamentals. If you've used any one rangefinder a good deal, it won't take you long to come to grips with a different one, save for details such as certain control placement differences. As much as I love Olympus, even some of their digital suff, the E-330 comes off to me as needlessly overwrought, making it anything but "rangefinder-like". There are, in fact, dSLRs that are more straightforward than this new EVOLT (though rarely staightforward enough for my temperament).

(Silly side-note) Well back into the last century, when I moved from a Yashica Electro 35 GT (my second-ever 35mm) to my first SLR (Canon F-1), I was a tad nervous about taking on shooting with a Big League pro camera. The funny thing was, of course, the F-1 was easier and faster to use than the Yashica; pros, and most other serious shooters with their heads screwed on right, I learned, weren't keen about screwing around with arcane controls. What I love about my current Hexar RFs is what I quickly came to love about that F-1: all the elemental controls are there, nothing more, nothing less. Know your film, load it, and go. I'll bet my ass that this is one of the overarching attractions of RF cameras for most of us here.

But, once again, I'm babbling. As the man next to me, with one of my Hexars in hand, once famously said: "If you wanna shoot, shoot! Don't talk".


- Barrett
 

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amateriat said:
But, once again, I'm babbling. As the man next to me, with one of my Hexars in hand, once famously said: "If you wanna shoot, shoot! Don't talk".


- Barrett

Hey,

My son bought me that DVD for a Christmas present last year. My all time favorite movie. Now, if I could just get some coiled rattlesnake inlays to put on Contax IIa!! (Tuco didn't have the coiled rattlesnakes, Blondie did.)

Wayne
 
It is not a rangefinder until you debate which $200 leather case to put on it and which $300 bag to put it in endlessly.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
E-330 a rangefinder? - certainly not. Overwrought - not so shure. The E-330 seems to offer the low end user lots of options, you just have to dig a bit. I think the E-330 shows it's linneage, the Olypus Pen-F being one of it's ancestors. Too bad it isn't as compact as that camera.
 
Yes, I'll give Olympus some props for dusting off the Pen F playbook and taking a page from it (although, according to the gang at DPReview, it's less well-implemented than it could've been). And, also, the only Olympus digital I'm quite familiar with in use is their C8080, which I regard as a somewhat underrated "prosumer" digicam. But the level of market-driven "featuritis" exemplified by the E-330 worries me, especially when it comes from a company which seems in an endless game of catch-up versus brands C and N (while running neck-and-neck with the likes of Sony). I'd hate to see Olympus get blown into the weeds alongside Konica Minolta and Contax/Kyocera.


- Barrett
 
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