| Product: |
Olympus E-410 |
| Date: |
27/10/07 (292 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Light, compact and jam packed full of options and features .
Disadvantages: Some experience needed to get use of all the functions !
This is my first review in a long while so bare with me folks I might be a bit rusty. As a keen amateur photographer and having just returned from a three day photography course using the Olympus E-410 I thought it would be a perfect time to write about it whilst it is still fresh in my mind.
The first thing that struck me about this DSLR camera was the light weight and the fact that it actually felt more like a compact digital than the professional DSLR that it is. Often amateur photographers tend to stick to top of the range compacts rather than venture into the world of DSLR because of the amount of learning that goes into operating a DSLR compared to the ease of functions on a compact and also because they feel the DSLR`s tend to be heavy and bulky, well this DSLR puts all those fears to bed.
With the full functionality of the very best DSLR cameras and the light weight compact feel of a compact digital, this camera has the market cornered for me. I have recently purchased a new compact digital and a DSLR but I will be looking to change to this camera very soon.
This camera has a large 2.5 inch screen on the rear allowing you to get a very good idea of how good the image you have captured is before actually printing or viewing on the pc. It also has a new image processing engine which provides sequential shooting at up to 3 frames per second; this is an improvement on previous versions of the camera.
The OlympusE-410 is a ten mega pixel camera which is slightly lower than the 12 mega pixel that most DSLR cameras come with now but take it from me as a top end amateur its all I need so for everyday snappers or other amateurs it is perfectly good enough, I in fact know a few pro`s who are still only on ten mega pixel and see no reason to change. Ten mega pixel gives a very, very clear image and can easily allow the image to be made poster size without distortion or pixilation.
Ease of use is foremost in a lot of people's minds when buying a camera which is why as I said earlier a lot of people stick to compacts. This camera is without doubt one of the easiest DSLR`s to get to grips with and if you choose to you can still allow it to do a lot of the work for you, however if you like to tinker with settings and manually choose everything then equally you can.
I know most of the technical specs of the camera would go straight over most peoples heads as they did mine until I had studied photography for nearly 3 years so I will steer clear of ranting on about the fact that it has Diopter adjustment:-3.0 - +1.0 or a Flash compensation of +/- 2 EV / 1/3 EV steps and instead will stick to the main understandable facts that people will look for such as it`s Built-in pop-up flash, its 14x powerful zoom lens and its built in image stabiliser which helps to avoid blurry images being taken.
Another thing a lot of photographers like to know is a bit about the cameras scene modes, the average compact has between 3 and 8 this DSLR carries 20, Portrait, Landscape, Landscape with Portrait, Night Scene, Night Scene with Portrait, Children, Sports, High Key, Low Key, Image Stabilisation Mode, Macro, Nature Macro, Candle, Sunset, Fireworks, Documents, Beach and Snow, Underwater Wide, Underwater Macro, Panorama) a very impressive range.
A list of important technical details!
Ultra-compact and ultra-light
Live View with 7x / 10x magnification for accurate focusing
10 Megapixels Live MOS sensor
Strong dust reduction (Supersonic Wave Filter)
6.4cm / 2.5" HyperCrystal LCD
Built-in pop-up flash
Lens:3x wide angle standard zoom
ED and aspherical lens elements for excellent quality
Close focusing distance of 25cm
Having used this camera for around 6 hours a day for the last three days I have found it comfortable to hold, easy to adjust to using, fantastic for capturing still or moving images and most of all I have been super impressed by the final images when viewed on the pc or eventually printed. We blew some of the images up to one and a half times poster size and the clarity of the giant image is still perfect even when viewed at extreme close up there is still no sign of distortion. I have to say I have been more impressed with this camera than I was with a few at twice its price and more.
That leads me on to the price of this camera which unbelievably is a very, very reasonable £399.99 in some places including in many buy now`s on eBay. It is slightly more expensive in places like curry`s or comet and even more expensive still in most specialist photography stores although it can be found with many add on`s in some places thus pushing the price up any way.
In using the camera during my course I also dealt with connecting it to the pc and using it in conjunction with a few different printers and I can tell you that the connection instructions and the software available with this camera is as top notch as the camera itself and also fairly easy to use and understand with the most basic knowledge.
All in all I would recommend this camera to basic amateurs and high use amateurs alike but it may just be a little ahead of real first time beginners. Once you have used a digital camera for a year or so and tinkered with its settings you should find it fairly easy to step up to this camera although it will be a learning curve.
Thanks for reading!
© The bigc1690
Summary: A quality dslr camera that is light and easy to use!
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Last comment:
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Nar2 - 27/10/07 A very handy review of which Id have uprated but there's no info on the actual controls - are they easy to use and is there a LCD screen on the back as well as the view hole? |
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