Olympus E-420 First Look at FourThirds-User.com

Olympus E-420 DSLR

Ian Burley of FourThirds-User.com takes a closer first look at the newly announced Olympus E-420 DSLR, an update to the E-410 but bringing with it some significant enhancements such as a new 2.7 inch LCD screen and continuous live view autofocus.

Ian examines the E-420’s capabilities based on its specs on paper, but it appears that he also has some top secret Powerpoint presentation from Olympus on which he based his observations.

From where I sit, I can see that Olympus only slightly improved the E-410 with the E-420 and there’s nothing much in the new camera that can’t be had with the E-510, save perhaps for Face Detection.

But the genius move here by Olympus is presenting the E-420 with a prime lens, the Zuiko Digital 25mm f/2.8 lens. Instead of just the usual crappy kit lenses offered by even the big camera makers, Olympus gives the buyer, especially the first-time DSLR user, an option to have a real prime lens to go with his E-420, so he can shoot great pictures right from Day One.

You know why prime lenses are great? That bigger aperture makes it a fast lens – the bigger aperture gathers light much faster – so you get brighter pictures. No zoom? Don’t worry, you can always zoom in with your feet; a few steps can easily cover that 18-55mm zoom distance of kit lenses.

The pancake design of the 25mm Zuiko lens also makes it an attractive option as it keeps the diminutive E-420 easy to carry. But if you really must have zoom, the E-420 is of course offered also with the 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 lenses.

But go to Ian’s post first, and learn more about the E-420

[Via: FourThirds-User.com]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.