I am very impressed with this digital SLR. For years I used Olympus OM series film cameras with satsfaction. As digital camera image quality improved, I decided to go digital and have tried Nikon, Canon and Fuji SLRs. All were bulky and heavy, showing their heritage as modified designs for 35mm film adapted for use with smaller digital sensors.
Having design their E-series as digital from the outset, Olympus seem to me to have far superior handling qualities. Carrying an E-410 all day is far preferrable to any of the rival makers models I bought. I first used an E-400, and agreed with the reviews which found images taken at high ISO "filmspeed" settings somewhat noisy. This problem is resolved in the E-410 which uses a different sensor. Another improvement is in the autofucussing which is again, much improved.
As well as the conventional SLR viewfinder, the E-410 gives one the option of composing shots in the LCD screen on the camera back as a "live preview". It would be great if this worked as quickly as on a pocket digital camera, but there is in fact quite a delay between pressing the shutter release and the image being focussed and captured. Notwishtanding this, I have found the live preview invaluable for macro work and I would hate to be without it now.
Another good feature of the recent E-series models is the "supersonic wave filter for dust reduction". Unlike film SLR cameras, digital ones can be ruined by dust on the sensor introduced when lenses are changed. Nikon offers sofware which maps and then cancels out the specks sounds like a rubbish "solution"! Olympus and Canon offer sonic systems which shake the sensor at start up to keep dust away. I'm ultra cautious when changing lenses, but I'm greatly reassured by reviews which suggest that the Olympus system really can be effective.
Finally Olympus seem to be developing a truly comprehensive system with a great (if expensive) selection of lenses and flash units. For clinical medical and dental photography they have an excellent 50mm (equivalent to 100mm in a 35mm format camera) macro lens which can also capture potraits or full body views. This can be coupled to a ring flash or twin macro flash with TTL metering and capable of taking perfectly exposed images straight out of the box. The only weak part of the system is the flash ring FR-1 needed to couple the flash head to the lens. I have bought three of these, and all three have broken in normal use!
The problem with the FR-1 is that the front element of it is held on to the main body by three TINY screws which just aren't up to the job. As I needed to keep working in three different centres I didn't return the units (what would be the point in exchanging one badly designed bit of kit for an identical one anyway). My solution is to permanently glue the front to the main body with Araldite. I hope that this shockingly poor piece of design isn't indicative of other problems elsewhere in the range.
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