e-420 - first impressions....

[Raist3d]

So I decided to go ahead, get one. I started to get scared that they were going to be out of stock for an important event I need one for, as I see BHPhoto is not out of stock on them, though the body only and pancake kits are not around.

Anyone interested in a 14-42 e-410/420/510 kit lens? e-mail me, because I have two of those now.

Impressions:

- Olympus changed more than I expected in little details. For example, the LCD display now has not only brightness but color temperature. That was surprising.

- The LCD can be seen much better in daylight over the e-410's - big improvement here

- LCD can be seen better from different angles due to size

- Contrast/DR/color gamut of LCD is night and day different (in a good way) from e-410's

- Having the ability to set the drive mode button now as an ISO or metering button just makes the interface of the e-420 even more streamlined (pointed out before by mfbernstein)

- Lenses other than pancake, dual kit lens of the 410, can be used in hybrid live view autofocus. Basically contrast autofocus happens between 3 points and then when you fully press the shutter the camera quickly autofocuses again using the normal "DSLR" AF. For non moving subjects this speeds up the focusing when the time comes.. and at least you get AF in live view.. can help for manual focus as an assist - you can half press the shutter, let the lens AF and if you have the camera in one of the S-AF + M or C-AF + M then you can focus manually and then shoot- the camera won't refocus.

Interestingly enough this works even if you have the magnified live view to 7x to 10x- this is really nice indeed!

- Auto WB does seem improved

- Exposure is now more spot on when using automatic exposure over the e-410 in a notable way

- face detection is the "first version" of it- i..e people have to be facing the camera (Fuji has a version now that can track people from above or side ways). Not that I really care all that much.

- Color in jpegs is notably improved and noise a bit , over the e-410

- I was wrong about banding- I saw it, and when pushing an ISO 1600 photo in particular I saw it in an E-3esque way, but it still seemed to be a notch down (a tiny little notch down) from the E-3. Seems on average harder to find even if using SAT.

- Enabling sat in auto exposure modes, does not seem to change the exposure down (like the E-3) but I noticed highlights are still a bit more protected. Not sure if there's a special circuitry compensating for this at a very low level or is just a better use of the raw development.

- histogram/live view preview, etc works fantastically well

- When browsing over photos in thumbnails, the 'active photo' being seen sizes up a tiny bit to stand out, in an animated way (from small to a bit bigger, it animates). I found this slightly annoying as it slows down clicking around but somewhat usefull in seeing a bit better the photo you are potentially picking

- as said before, full E-3 remote flash control in full force, full feature set.

- The 4- thumbnail preview of white balance or exposure is more interesting than I thought, as those 4-small thumbnails are all in live view/realtime with what the camera is "seeing" and you can easily pick and choose a better white balance/exposure, etc.

- contrast autofocus speed becomes a bit faster with faster lenses. It does hunt noticeably with any of the lenses.

- another very nice tweak up- if you have anti-shock enabled, when you press on the super control panel on the drive mode icon, you get all the different options with and without autoshock enabled. This is great- no more digging to a menu to turn it on or off, and you can see from the super control panel if it's on or off. I don't believe the e-410 had either.

----------------- e-420 vs E-3 DR/etc.

I did some late night testing with my hallway, found my e-420 seems to run just a notch hotter than the E-3 - less than 1/3rd of a stop as trying to reduce the exposure by 1/3rd of a stop put it below the E-3 by that same notch.

Highlight recovery with Olympus studio 2, interpolating between those two exposures seemed right about the same. I did notice the e-420 seemed to have more shadow data than the E-3 giving that part of the histogram a bit more "taller" data. The e-3 seemed to have a bit more data from midrange to highlight before going up again on average. This makes for a very subtle difference.

Seems like the e-420 has been tweaked perhaps further to be able to produce a less constrasty image by default, while the E-3 probably gets a subtle notch up in the "3d" aspect of the image, thought the e-420 does seem to get that "3d look" over the e-410.

This was exposed to a tungsten light from the hallway, this is not full spectrum light, and I don't know if the E-3 or e-420 would do better than the other/etc. I still get the impression the E-3 has a "something" extra but the e-420 comes close.

I did some test shots (snaps all) in the afternoon, but it was with the kit lens. While the colors have improved a bit with it, I still notice this "muddying-browning" of the photo over the 14-54 or 12-60. I have noticed the e-410 jumps more to life with one of the high grade lenses and the E-3 great color deteriorates a notch with that kit lens. If one thing this kit lens is though, is sharp.

Ill try to post some shots when I can. I am again, soo busy... need sleep soon...

- Raist


--
Raist3d (Photog. Student & Tools/Systems/Gui Games Developer)
Andreas Feininger (1906-1999) 'Photographers — idiots, of which there are
so many — say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great
photographs.” That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s
nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest. That’s what
makes a good photograph.'

[Paul Shields]

Good report Raist - looks like a great box of tricks. I only handled one briefly recently but thought the body shape was an improvement over the E-400 (bit more of a bulge where your right hand grips it). Looking forward to more reports and some images .

[Raist3d]

Some of you probably have seen these by now... e-420, contrast AF, 14-42 kit lens.

The interesting shot is the last- I used the contrast AF to select the leftmost area of the image to focus on her, and I pretended I was pointing the camera at him (a coworker)







- Raist