Review rated by 11 Ciao members on average: helpful
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Let's be quite sure about this-the E1 is aimed squarely at the professional user. Which is not to say that the advanced/enthusiastic amateur is not going to get a lot out of it too. If you are new to photography, or even new to digital photography, this may not be the ideal choice for you. The camera is relatively compact, but even with my big hands, the controls are easily manipulated. Olympus have opted for using dedicated controls for many functions, rather than relying entirely on menus and control dials. At first site, the plethora of buttons seems a bit daunting, but the layout is intuitive and easy to learn. I use the camera for landscape/mountaineering work. It is just about ideal for those uses, being lightweight, relatively small and robustly constructed, with seals on important seams/controls. The camera has a choice of compression modes and can produce both RAW and TIFF files. A word of caution-to manipulate the RAW files [which I use a lot for landscape work] you need to buy some extra Olympus Studio software which retails around £125-other systems let Photoshop or cheaper plug ins do the RAW stuff for them. The autofocus system is fast and accurate. I have some problems with the viewfinder, which is not espceially large or bright. I suspect this will deter sports/action users more than other user groups. The exposure compensation system also seems a little eccentric, producing rather less over compensation than the settings would suggest: or maybe I'm just too critical. One downside. This is the first in what Olympus hope will be a new line of Four Thirds system cameras. It has a new lens mount, which Olympus again hope will be adopted by other manufacturers. At the moment, though, lens choice is a bit limited and the lenses are not cheap: although I did say this is a pro camera and the quality of the lenses is admirable. Olympus have gone out on a limb by producing the first digital SLR built from scratch-i.e. not being based on an existing film camera design. The result is a pleasure to work with. Just don't expect a bargain for a while.
01.02.2007 13:03
good review
04.05.2004 11:42
Not for me then, I'm not very technically minded I'm afraid.
25.04.2004 14:40
Welcome to ciao! Great, a well-written review. Good style! Interesting to learn about new things! :-)) Sabine