Saturday, July 2, 2011

The new Olympus E-P3

The new Olympus Pen E-P3 has just been announced. The design is quite similar to the E-P3, but it supposedly has some technical improvements. You can learn the details here.

But do you know what I really would like to see on a new Pen? Only three things:
  •  Better ergonomics. It is virtually impossible to carry the camera in one hand without accidentally changing the position of the two back dials. I actually had to disable some of the functionalities of the round dial, in order to limit damages due to inadvertently switching settings. This did not change in the E-P3.
  • A dedicated button to turn the histogram on and off in live view, in all viewing modes. Not available in the E-P3.
  • The ability to zoom in the image right after taking a photo, using the top dial, in order to check for focus accuracy or image blur. This is absent in the E-P3.

Things I don't really need:
  • Better high ISO image quality. It seems to be better on the E-P3, but I suspect it is still not great, unlike current mid-range DSLRs. Anyway, I don't need to go above ISO 1600 on most of my photos.
  • A built-in viewfinder (electronic or optical). The external, tiltable,VF-2 electronic viewfinder is superb. OK, it looks ugly, but it does its job perfectly. The E-P3 has no built-in viewfinder and is compatible with the VF-2.
  • Tiltable LCD screen. It is not present in the E-P3, but it is on the E-PL3. But I use only the VF-2 to compose. I've been taking photos through a viewfinder for more than 20 years. I'm not gonna start framing on a LCD screen now!

So I am going to wait for the "Pen Pro" that has been rumoured recently...

1 comment:

alvis said...

The Olympus E-P3 is a gorgeous camera, and almost Leica-like. Also, The Olympus E-P3 brings the high quality 16.2 megapixel sensor, great low-light performance.

Camera Olympus