Not really Santa, and not really Christmas either: the Olympus E-3 is not mine to keep. I do get to review the thing at least. After, I dunno how many years waiting now, this should be interesting to say the least. I’ve got the E-3 body, the new Zukio Digital 12mm-60mm f/2.8-4 SWD lens, and the 70mm-300mm f/4-5.6 ED zoom. Nice to also have the vertical grip and an extra battery for testing. (And yes I know, these aren’t the greatest product shots. Sorry!)
It feels like the bigger brother of the Olympus E-510 that I reviewed, and that’s a good thing. I powered it on and wandered thru the menus, happily finding that there isn’t a jillion options waiting for my customization. Sure there are things I need to read the manual to understand/set, but all in all I feel like everything I needed to start shooting right away is mostly already taken care of by the defaults. And, I don’t feel that I need to start studying the instruction manual–I just need to look a couple things up. What a relief!!!
General first impressions:
- Metal body, good build quality as usual from Olympus
- Ergonomics seem right on, good selection of direct buttons placed where your fingers naturally go. Shape of body is just about right for my hands, and the grip suits me well enough to confidently one-hand the body with the 12mm-60mm zoom.
- Not too heavy, not too light. (Just right?)
- Autofocus seems fast alright.
- Big bright viewfinder image
- Low noise in shadows (but more testing to be done)
- Auto white balance indoors with halogen lights very good
- Familiar Olympus menu interface
Some shots of the 12mm-60mm zoom lens compact and fully extended. The extended barrel looks teeny compared to the lens hood, but it’s a sturdy and secure lens. I owned the Canon 24-105mm f/4 L zoom for a while when it first came out, and that lens barrel would slowly creep out to its extended length if you had it on your shoulder. Very annoying. I don’t expect the 12-60mm Zukio to do that.
There is a lot of pent-up demand for this machine (presumably) so I’ve been asked to get my review done, pronto. Unfortunately there isn’t much sunny weather in the forecast so I guess we’ll see what we get. Stay loosely tuned…
