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Olympus E-3 - hot or not?

I am surprised. As an Oly E-1 user I was quite looking forward to the announcement of the new E-3 and - after reading the specs - I would expect it to be a very capable cam that may actually have an edge over some of the current offerings in the market. Especially with the new f2 Zuiko's.

However it has generated few interest/discussion here at OPF. Not that it should or must but that it generates so little attention surprises me. So in stead of speculating on the why's (not suitable as working horse, limited IQ?, bad investment, 4/3 ..) let's have your thoughts? Is the Oly E-3 worth a second look?
 
Is the E-3 worth a look -- of course!

But in the long time since i learned the capabilities of my E-1, I've moved on to shooting with smaller cameras (Ricoh GR-D and GX-100) and rangefinders, so the DSLR niche to me is down to very wide and fairly long lenses. I can't get very excited about discussing the E-3 in the abstract, but will be interested in trying it once it is in the stores and I have gotten my ZD 11-22 and 50/2 out of storage to try it with. This is a contrast to the E-1, which I purchased as soon as it was available and used constantly for about 2-3 years.

scott
 

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
I think Oly lost most people in the long wait. I doubt they are going to move back to a half sized sensor when they are shooting with either of the two FF brands. F2 is exciting when you can't just up the iso with still far better noise and tonality and when you need that wide a lens to get close to the shallow DOF realised on larger chip cameras, otherwise cheaper f2.8 zooms are going to be just as good..
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
F2 is exciting when you can't just up the iso with still far better noise and tonality and when you need that wide a lens to get close to the shallow DOF realised on larger chip cameras, otherwise cheaper f2.8 zooms are going to be just as good..
Ben could you explain this? I don't disagree just I don't follow what you are saying!

Asher
 

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
Why do you need f2? To get more light. Those tiny sensors can't come close to the 1D mkIII or D3 for noise, you could bump up the iso significantly on those bodies, certainly more than the difference between f2 and f2.8 - and still get better, probably far better IQ.

The only other reason to use wide apertures is to lessen DOF, well with a sensor that small your 1.3X or FF sensor will have far less DOF at f2.8 anyway.

As far as focusing speed with faster lenses, when the oly can beat a 1D mkIII with USM lenses I'll believe their claim for 'fastest focusing' but I sincerely doubt it.
 
Why do you need f2? To get more light. Those tiny sensors can't come close to the 1D mkIII or D3 for noise, you could bump up the iso significantly on those bodies, certainly more than the difference between f2 and f2.8 - and still get better, probably far better IQ.
If IQ would be on par with the Canon 40D accros the ISO range I think it would be quite astonishing engineering on an indeed small 4:3 sensor. And for some you could argue that already Canon 40D IQ is excelent or even more then needed.

The only other reason to use wide apertures is to lessen DOF, well with a sensor that small your 1.3X or FF sensor will have far less DOF at f2.8 anyway.
Even compared to 1.5 or 1.6 crop this stil holds true. In the end the Canon 40D and Nikon D300 are neighbours in price range so logical competitors but are quite a different offering (differences weather sealing, in body IS, MP, swivel screen, AF speed?, low light focus, wireless flash..). The discussion on Oly offering the only weather sealed system with IS in this price range may be true but most seem to be doing fine without the weather sealing anyway.

As far as focusing speed with faster lenses, when the oly can beat a 1D mkIII with USM lenses I'll believe their claim for 'fastest focusing' but I sincerely doubt it.
This will be an interesting one because it is also claimed agains an internal test method. However when indeed faster and reliable in low light together with 5 stop IS it would be significant.

Thanks for explaining so far, much appreciated.

Martin
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So what are the selling points, or better buying points for Oly users and the rest of us if we plonk the new Oly and a Pentax K10D on the table side by side, each with their new lenses?

Asher
 
E-3 benchmark product according to Erwin Puts

Reading the topic on the Canon 50 f1.2 Dawid Loubser refers to lens testing by Erwin Puts.

On october 21st he published an article Barnacks smile where he refers to the olympus E-3 as a benchmark product. On the one hand showing an interest but on the other questioning there is a need for all this functionality. Interesting angle.
 
Martin, thank you for bringing that wonderful read to my attention - it's been a while since I looked at Erwin's site, and that essay is so very true. I have always felt very much out of place in this extreme consumerist society, and it's nice to read the words of somebody who expresses that feeling also, and with such a deep understanding.

I would also like to play with an E-3 before I could make any judgement. It is bound to be a wonderful, feature-rich camera (in terms of diversity of features, I believe my colleage's E-510 makes my EOS-1D MkIIN look quite primitive). For my needs, however, I don't think a 4/3rds sensor could ever capture enough light, I very often push the limits with a f/1.2 lens and ISO3200, and if I understand correctly, they will never be able to breach a fundamental noise limit unless they make far bigger, fewer pixels. I love shooting in extreme low light.
 

walter zeiss

New member
they will never be able to breach a fundamental noise limit unless they make far bigger, fewer pixels. I love shooting in extreme low light.

Dawid, as a general rule I avoid the use of "Never". You may remember all the trouble that Richard Nixon got into after uttering the word NEVER.

It is my personal belief that technology will produce a 4/3 sensor superior to any sensor on the market at this time. I will place no bets on when, but I don't think it will be all that long. When that happens the marketing departments at Canon and others will do all they can to foster continued pixle mania. Would you be satisfied a prefect 16 mp camera?

I have had my hands on an E-3 for 10 days; here are some observations in no particular order:

-The feel in my hand is good but not as nice as the E-1. The power grip fixes that.
-I am pleased by the separate power grip although some may say it is not a pro feature. I believe the advantages of the reduced body size more than make up for the slightly reduced capacity provided by the 2 familiar cells. The ability to use 6 AA's with the included accessory could be useful to travelers.
-Quality of construction is very good.
-The display is really nice with very good sharpness and color rendition.
-The viewfinder is good, big enough and bright enough. Not like the E-3XX.
-The auto focus IS quick with the kit 12-60 lens. This lens also focuses to about 8 inches, that's about 3 inches from the end of the lens.
-The high speed mode seems more than satisfactory for most uses and I did not fill the buffer with reasonable bursts.
-The tonal rendition of warm whites is the best I have seen.
-While I have not made any large prints at this time the camera seems to produce very sharp images.
-Likewise for the image stabilization.

All in all I believe the E-3 is absolutely great successor to the E-1 and a worthy competitor to the other offerings in that price range. Time will tell if the lost momentum because if its late arrival will forever tarnish the E-3, I hope not.
 
Dawid, as a general rule I avoid the use of "Never". You may remember all the trouble that Richard Nixon got into after uttering the word NEVER.

Hi Walter,

Did you buy an E-3, or are you just evaluating one? I hope you enjoy this camera, it certainly does look fabulous on many fronts.

I don't want to start a huge discussion here which is off-topic from the Olympus E-3, but let me just defend my statement: Being in the technology industry myself, I am also averse to the term "never".

However, I use it in my post with the same conviction as when making a statement like "a body with mass can never be accelerated past the speed of light". I harbour a secret belief that this will one day in the future be circumvented - but for now we have to accept that this is a law of physics.

So too, I believe that photon counting statistics (very nicely described here if you haven't read it yet) place a somewhat fundamental limit on the noise performance of a sensor, if one considers the standard model of still photography being a single recording of the photons that hit some kind of sensor.

Now, therein lies the key - I am confident that no four-thirds camera that is likely to be released by any manufacturer will ever improve on the ISO performance of, say a Canon 5D or a Nikon D3 - as we know it. Why? Because they will either have to abandon the traditional model of still photography (such that one no longer captures a single frame (or moment) of a scene - all sorts of interesting theoretical possibilities arise here, but they will all mean severe digital manipulation of one or more images), or they will have to drastically reduce the number of pixels on the sensor.

I am sure that, on the digital processing side, many interesting things will happen. But, if you want to capture something like a high-quality sequence of a ballerina in the air on a dimply lit stage, there is only so many photons being thrown towards your camera, and for the time being, I think that physically larger buckets will consistently outperform smaller buckets, and four thirds will always have smaller buckets, because they aren't going to reduce pixel count!

(We really should applaud Nikon for abandoning the 'megapixel race' their D3, I hope canon does the same!)

To capture a better image of a scene, I think we shall have to start emulating the human vision system, but this will completely change the whole concept of how a camera works - maybe when this happens, SLR cameras will become a niche, like large format view cameras are today!

Just as the maximum resolution possible from a 6x7 camera will always be better than the maximum resolution from a 35mm camera, so too will the maximum light sensitivity of a 35mm camera system always be better than the best possible from a four thirds camera. Both are dictated by physical size, nothing else - and that is the trade-off one makes (on either side).

Those are my views, in anyway.

Would you be satisfied a prefect 16 mp camera?

Well now, the definition of "perfect" is very different for everybody else, but I must say that, at this stage, I am, and will for a long time, be satisfied by a perfect 8MP camera - a 1D MkII N! I am overjoyed at the stunning image quality and colours my camera produces, and I wonder if I will ever be able to exploit it well enough. I am sometimes bothered by a bit of banding at ISO3200 (which is why, I guess, the 'standard' range only goes up to ISO1600) - but the noise performance (grain) at ISO3200 is, in all other respects, wonderful for my needs.

But my needs are very personal, so if I were to produce commercial sports images, I am sure I'd like to continue to see improvements in high ISO performance, but for the kind of more abstract shots I do, the grain even adds to the images. With this camera, I feel I can extract the best from all my lenses, it's wide enough without mercilessly exposing the poorer corners of the lenses, and the per-pixel detail from those big pixels are great for my needs.

With a 16Mp camera, I'd have to substantially increase my storage and computing infrastructure to deal with the amount of RAW data I'd have to maintain!

But... a 16Mp camera that has a "small raw" mode to give me binned, 8MP raw images with fantastically low noise, now that would be great. If canon followed Olympus' lead, and actually released firmware to substantially upgrade older models in terms of photographic functionality - based on advancements in new models, we might (??) have had updated firmware for the 1Ds MkII to add binned "small raw" output - I'd love a 8MP full-frame camera with great ISO6400 performance :) But we can dream...

This may or may not even be possible, I don't know enough about the 1Ds' imaging path.

Anyway, here I went all off-topic in anyway! To conclude, based on the original subject of this thread, I would say the E-3, from a purely photographic standpoint, does not seem "hot" - the 40D et al should still be better (from what I've seen). But features-wise, it certainly seems quite amazing, and must be very enjoyable to use!

And the lenses... oh my. I am jealous that I have to use Canon primes to get the sort of quality my colleague is getting with his Zuiko zooms.
 
Having now played with an E-3, I must say that I am impressed. Not only does the camera feel wonderful in the hand, the thing that impressed me most was the amazing viewfinder. Amazing, because it is every bit as good and bright as the one on my 1D MkIIN. In fact, because of the image aspect ratio, it seemed to render a picture as wide, but seemingly higher. Really, really impressive - kudos to Olympus.

I do feel the Canon 1D has a more "industrial" solid quality to it, but the E-3 is a suave camera... And that it manages to put such a huge viewfinder onto a four thirds imaging area, with a pop-up flash, with weather sealing, makes you wonder why other manufacturers have not been able to do this.

The articulated LCD plus Live View is also really good, and all round, I think anybody using this camera will be a very, very happy photographer. It does forgo the "compactness" benefit of the four thirds system, as it is quite large. It's funny how large the camera body is, with the tiny mirror box and sensor when you remove the lens.

I do remember being surprised at the long viewfinder blackout time - on the 1D you really almost don't notice that the mirror has swung up and down it's so quick - but I'd need to play a bit more to be conclusive about this.

Since my colleague bought this camera (surely one of the very few in South Africa at this stage!) we will be doing some decent comparisons soon, as I also want to see how his Zuiko 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 stacks up against my EF 200 f/2.8L II lens. I've not looked at RAW images on-screen yet, but the ISO performance certainly looks much better than the E-510 (on the camera screen).

My earlier statements remain, that the laws of physics tell us that a four thirds camera will always lag behind on high ISO image quality, but in all other respects, I must say this camera is cool, and I'd take it over a 40D any day. It has a different quality to it.
 
Having now played with an E-3, I must say that I am impressed. Not only does the camera feel wonderful in the hand, the thing that impressed me most was the amazing viewfinder. Amazing, because it is every bit as good and bright as the one on my 1D MkIIN. In fact, because of the image aspect ratio, it seemed to render a picture as wide, but seemingly higher. Really, really impressive - kudos to Olympus.

I do feel the Canon 1D has a more "industrial" solid quality to it, but the E-3 is a suave camera... And that it manages to put such a huge viewfinder onto a four thirds imaging area, with a pop-up flash, with weather sealing, makes you wonder why other manufacturers have not been able to do this.

The articulated LCD plus Live View is also really good, and all round, I think anybody using this camera will be a very, very happy photographer. It does forgo the "compactness" benefit of the four thirds system, as it is quite large. It's funny how large the camera body is, with the tiny mirror box and sensor when you remove the lens.

I do remember being surprised at the long viewfinder blackout time - on the 1D you really almost don't notice that the mirror has swung up and down it's so quick - but I'd need to play a bit more to be conclusive about this.

Since my colleague bought this camera (surely one of the very few in South Africa at this stage!) we will be doing some decent comparisons soon, as I also want to see how his Zuiko 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 stacks up against my EF 200 f/2.8L II lens. I've not looked at RAW images on-screen yet, but the ISO performance certainly looks much better than the E-510 (on the camera screen).

My earlier statements remain, that the laws of physics tell us that a four thirds camera will always lag behind on high ISO image quality, but in all other respects, I must say this camera is cool, and I'd take it over a 40D any day. It has a different quality to it.

Would be interested to learn your findings.

ISO 800 should be very usable (not that special anymore but a big step nevertheless for Olympus users) and it also seems to produce a more film grain like noise compared to the E-510.

I handled an E-3 with a 12-60 at a fair and in very dim conditions it was still very quick to focus (compared to my E-1). The SWD motors seem to make a difference because the 12-60 mounted on my E-1 also gave a significant quicker responce. Image quality comparison of the non swd 50-200 vs the Canon EF 200 f2.8 would be very interesting.

There is quite an active user group at four third user.com for some more discussions on the particularities and practical settings of the E-3. There is some fanboyism there but most have an open mind re. pro's and cons.
 

Philip Chong

New member
Olympus E-3's super fast AF could not react fast enough on the MotoGP riders here at Malaysia's Sepang Circuit during their end-of-season testings last November. Most of the time, the camera/lens combo could track the riders from afar until the subject gets nearer and the AF system went out of focus just about when I wanted to press the shutter to take the shots. Continous 5 fps is even worse - not a single frame was in focus. Lens used was not of the newer SWD type but the older design - ZD 300mm f/2.8 = 600mm effective focal length due to 4/3 system's 2x-crop factor.

The E-3 with an SWD lens mounted is definitely the camera with the fastest AF speed but it sure is not among the most accurate in tracking ability.
OLY01.jpg
OLY02.jpg
OLY03.jpg
OLY04.jpg


However, I attributed this to a combination of user error (me) and an AF system that is optimized (in my opinion) to be faster and better than the competitions but ended up cancelling itself out.

Why?

Unlike Canon's AF system, which starts from the center AF point when all 45-point, 11-point or 8-point AF is used in AI Servo AF mode, the system devised by Olympus can be activated from any of its 11-point AF the moment it detects a moving subject that is closest to the lens/camera combo. For example, in Continuous AF tracking mode, if you have two poles in-between the main subject located in the center, with the poles being nearer to the camera, the lens will focus on both poles rather than the main subject as its outer AF points pick-up the nearest subject and ignore the one further away. This might explain why the erratic movement of those MotoGP riders were too fast for the E-3's tracking system to work effectively with a non-SWD lens.
 

Philip Chong

New member
Finally, the only way to get a sharp image is resorting to a 1 shot, 1 capture technique. Like these two:
OLY05.jpg
OLY06.jpg

Or a single panning shot like this one:
OLY07.jpg

Lens used was still the Olympus Zuiko DIGITAL 300mm f/2.8 (equals to 600mm in 35mm format)
 
Very interesting observation Philip, I was always wondering about the big tuna and performance on the improved AF of the E3.

My best guess is, as the lense communicates with the body, an upgrade of "protocol" whatever you call it, is probably required to take full advantage of the big tuna on the E3.

Know what? I would share your observations with Olympus by all means and ask for clarification.

I mean, come on, someone who splashed out that amount of cash for this lense, you should expect it to work better, even without being a ZD 300 SWD, which I wonder whether they will come out with or not....
 

Philip Chong

New member
Know what? I would share your observations with Olympus by all means and ask for clarification.
I have sent Olympus those images a week after shooting those MotoGP riders, and they will let me know of the developments once they have finetuned the system.

Also, the E-3 has another glitch/bug. It could not automatically create a new folder in the same CF card (with plenty of space to spare) once the existing filename has reach "9999". Neither could I manually create a new one when the filename has reach that sequence.

The only way to force the camera to create a new folder and start from "0001" again is put in a new CF card. Olympus promised to come out with a firmware to solve this problem.

For the record: All tests were done with several units from the first shipment of Olympus E-3imported into my country. Hopefully, the unit we will be buying (the publication office I work for) soon is free from all the bugs/glitches that affected the first shipment. Existing Olympus cameras we have are the E-1 and E-300.

We own two camera systems - Canon and Olympus. We might be adding Nikon in the near future if the situation warrants it but for the moment, it looks unlikely since the D3 nor the Nikon system didn't quite impress my boss.
 
Thanks for sharing all that Philip, and btw. a big welcome to OPF!

I find your shots very impressive, I always thought of the ZD300 and ZD7-14 to be very unique and capable lenses, with a pricetag that is of course!

What is your line of work Philip, is it sports photography?
 

Philip Chong

New member
Nope, I am not involved in sports photography at all. Just shooting a few motorsports events, both cars and bikes based, for a motorsports column in one of the local papers on a freelance basis. And I am also a biker too. The publication company I work full-time with are involved in producing mags on digital cameras, electronic gadgets, IT stuff and PC Games though. Occasionally, I used my access to such motorsports events to test any DSLR's autofocus, metering and exposure systems.
 

Philip Chong

New member
Thanks for the comments, Georg and Martin.

For the last image, yes, it was shot in panning with the Body IS feature switched on. I had to resort to a single shot capture via the panning technique after earlier bids of trying to capture continuous sequence shots of the bikes failed to get any of them in focus.

AF aside, I like the colour rendition of the E-3 too. As those MotoGP riders came in colourful leathers and bikes, having a DSLR that could capture those colours accurately is equally important.
 

Sergei Rodionov

New member
For example, in Continuous AF tracking mode, if you have two poles in-between the main subject located in the center, with the poles being nearer to the camera, the lens will focus on both poles rather than the main subject as its outer AF points pick-up the nearest subject and ignore the one further away.

hence the "lock CF" option, that would keep hold and predict movement of the object, ignoring what comes in between object and camera.

Manual is a wee bit shabby on this stuff, but they got it somewhat covered in supplied video..
If you want to shoot things like that - choose small AF points in diamond shape and shoot CF, and you will be fine.
 

Sergei Rodionov

New member
Yes, 4/3 stuff got its quirks, specially in high iso zone. But then - no one does ok there, except for Marks from Canon, and they cost just a wee bit too much. If anyone plans to shoot 1600+ - they are better off with Canon, no doubt. Not sure about newest Nikon, but then again - different price cat..

That said - here is example of iso3200 on E-3, shot properly exposed, WB not touched, "film grain" denoise applied.

74102004.jpg


and crop

74102003.jpg


(and yes, its Mark XII ;))

------------

IQ of 4/3 images, even back from E-1 is not anything to smirk about. In fact no one can tell difference from 5D, if you print properly exposed shot on full magazine page. And thats 12mp vs 5.5 nearly ancient camera. (and i am not kidding - we did such comparision). Only difference truly can be told when you starting to do 1:1 digital crops. But i dont care much for those anyway ;)
 

Ian L. Sitren

pro member
This was shot during a series I did over 3 days for a magazine. I shot the whole project on an E-3 with the 12-60 lens. I really found it to be an excellent system.

AvaCowan-2007-140707-logo.jpg
 
Thanks or sharing and bringing this thread forward again. The light in her hair/arm seems to have a blue glow. Can I ask what kind of lighting did you use?

The E-3 is starting to become a true succesor to the E-1 in the sense that there is a share of very enthusiast users who seem to be able to get more out of the camera then the dry specs would suggest possible. Like the shots from Sergei above some are posting very clean ISO 3200 shots where at the launch of the camera the first responces were that this would not be possible with a 4/3 camera. Also the f2 SWD zooms announced at the same time as the E-3 have gained quite a special reputation. Maybe because of their high price they remain exclusive but some of the pictures shared on the web are quite remarkable.

In the meantime the mFT format is announced and the Panny G1 with it's 12mp sensor and seemingly improved high ISO capabilities. The Olympus E-30 is about to hit the shelves with possibly even better performance from the same sensor. Maybe it is time to move the tread about "4/3rds picking up momentum" from the Leica corner to Olympus/Panasonic as Leica's involvement seems less and less apparent.

I really found it to be an excellent system.

Although I may not be able to get everything out of my "system" the quality keeps surprising me. The Zuiko's are excellent optics and I have added a Leica 14-50 f2.8 -3.5 OIS zoom which gives wonderfull colour and sharpness. At the same time the Panny L1 body often has my MF Zuiko's on them as the L1 has focus confirmation with legacy glass. So the different 4/3 products allow more flexibility then one would expect.

Btw, the E-3 starts to become true succesor to the E-1 as well in the sense of not selling in big numbers I am afraid. But it remains on my wish list!

Martin
 

Ian L. Sitren

pro member
I don't have a "blue" glow here, maybe it is nothing more than just a slight difference in monitors or color calibration. However it was pretty cold that night and I think she was turning blue!

Lighting was a Profoto Acute 2400 with a 4x6 softbox as the main. If I remember, the accent light was an Elinchrom monolight with a reflector and grid.
 
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