wrought from purest magnesium alloy, the E3’s 800g body oozes quality, and is rammed full of tech: fantastic image stabilization, weather-proofing, dust-reduction, and
a brilliant, 100%-coverage viewfinder.
Picture quality easily matches Canon and Nikon rivals, and Olympus’s autofocus is quicker than your cat when the dog next door is out for a stroll. In continuous mode, it lets you take five pictures per second until the cows come home, or your memory card is full.
Close, but no Havana
Unfortunately, the controls are a touch fiddly. It has a focusing ring, for example, but it’s linked to the camera’s autofocus system. A nifty idea in theory, but the delay between the photographer making an adjustment and anything actually happening is too long, thus highly annoying.
Ultimately, though the E3 is the best Olympus out there, it falls short compared to Canon and Nikon’s prosumer ranges. You’d be better off with a Nikon D200 or a Canon 5D instead.
Love Build quality. Image stabilizer. Clever display design. Viewfinder.
Hate Less-than-intuitive user interface. Focus-by-wire. Price. Limited choice of lenses.
3 stars
We say A rock-solid camera that takes excellent photos, but which is out-gunned by similarly priced rival products from Nikon and Canon.
screen 2.5 inches, 230,000 pixels
lens 14-52 f/2.8-3.5
sensor 10 megapixels
Storage CF I, II, III; XD
Size/weight 142x116x75 mm/800g |
