An excellent semi-pro camera system
I've been using E1 with Zuiko Digital 14-54 f/2.8-3.5 for several months now, and I must report that I am thoroughly pleased with its operation. It performs flawlessly, without any glitches, and is a solid, well built and reliable photographic tool. It is a joy to use in the field.
Image quality is nothing short of excellent. A3 sized prints from E1 easily match my best slide scans from 35mm film. The images are clean, vivid, sharp, with beautiful colors, which reminds me of Kodak emulsions. Once I made a beautiful, clean A4 print from a small cropped segment of a portrait; at this enlargement, the entire picture would exceed A2 paper size. 5 megapixels yes, but 5 megapixels of extreme signal quality. Unlike Canon, Kodak didn't put hardware noise reduction on its sensors, so with help of NeatImage or Noise Ninja, one can make very clean prints even at ISO 800. However, ISO 1600 and 3200 display banding artifacts, and are useful mostly for black&white images. Those B&W images, however, respond very well to noise reduction and produce very good A4 prints. As for the 14-54 lens, it is very sharp from f/3.5-f/11, has very good but not excellent bokeh, has extremely useful range from moderately wide to moderately tele (28-108mm in 35mm equivalents), and works best at the long end. There it really shines as a portrait lens. However, it displays some vignetting at the long end, and some cyan fringing in the corners at the wide and.
So, the strong points of this camera are its absolute image quality, color fidelity, buid quality and ergonomics. On the minus side, however, there is autofocus, which leaves much room for improvement. It is slow and of little use in low light. Also, the buffer could clear faster, especially with microdrive, whose full potential isn't utilized.
Conclusion: it's an excellent camera, whose real competitor is Canon 20D. Canon has a solid resolution advantage, produces good images, and works better at high ISO values. However, E1 is better built, it has an excellent kit lens which is every bit as good as Canon L zooms and rivals good primes, has built-in sensor cleaning, is splash-proof and an excellent overall package. Choice between them is a matter of individual preference and taste. What made it for me was the range of focal lengths. With Olympus, I can cover my needs with just two lenses, and 14-54 is designed just right. It's wide enough and long enough for me not to need anything else for most applications. With a 35mm legacy and 1.6x crop factor, Canon's lens range is just inconvenient. Most lenses are either not wide enough or not long enough or cover the wrong range. With Olympus, I still didn't feel any desperate need to buy a second lens; 108mm equivalent is just right for portraiture, and 28mm is just wide enough for the kind of landscapes I usually shoot.
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This camera deserves a close look, and handling/feel
Four month satisfied owner after a lot of research.If one goes on raw comparative specs alone, the E-1 may fall short on some comparisons,such as number of megapixels (5) and number of lenses available(ca. 12). But handling it and looking at the untouched results,will impress one,-don't reveal the source and see. It is a tough,professional machine,and weather sealed, and has no history of breakdowns in a year from users and no major glitches... Having said that, some users don't want or need a professional level camera. If you don't need these special adjustment capabilities, don't mess with this level of camera. It is rather heavy, and huge manual to absorb. The dust reduction system and the high quality lenses of superb design are very large advantages to all. Will the E system be around in ten years you say? I don't know, and you don't know,but the camera will be usable for a long time. Certainly until every suburban home has a 36" high definition flat panel TV in their living room and moves on to covet a 65".
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