Uh-oh. I first "met" an E-1 at Glazer's, and that was *my*
"downfall." Now my pictures are "piquing your interest?" Have I become. .
. (gasp). . . An Enabler?
Seriously, the only two DSLR viewfinders I remotely liked were the Pent*x
*ist and the E-1. They were the only viewfinders that I felt OK with
manual focus. Both cameras felt good in the hand. the *ist D was
tempting. It is less noisy at high ISOs, and fully supports old K-mount
lenses with as much automation as the lens has, one-button stop-down for
metering and exposure. But it was a little too small for my big hands,
and the E-1's build quality, dustbuster and speed of the standard zoom won
me over. Plus, I own Zuikos, not Takumars. And I live in Seattle, where
the E-1's weatherproofing is a real benefit.
For OM Zuiko owners who want to use their old lenses, the only choices are
the C*non DSLRs and the E-1. I didn't particularly care for the "feel" of
the C*nons (although the 20D is getting more like it. Nor do I like the
"plastic" look you sometimes get with them. That superb noise reduction at
the chip level in the C*nons comes at a price--you can't turn it off.
I fooled around with some test images I shot at Glazer's. It turns out
that with sparing use of Neat Image, you can get very good-looking ISO 800
and 1600 images out of the E-1. The trick is to eliminate chrominance
noise, but only reduce luminance noise by about 25% to 40%, usually the
lower figure. This avoids the plastic look, and you get an image that
resembles very well-processed film. It's different from the ultra-smooth,
nearly noise-free look of the C*non, but you don't have faces of live human
beings turning into Barbie-doll plastic, either. A little noise is not a
bad thing--it actually adds to the impression of sharpness.
Seeing what great results Skip and Doro got out of the E-1 was another plus
for the E-1. Also the work of B.D. Colen, who I know from another
forum. I must also admit that the character of the Olympus online
community was a factor, too. So now my old Zuikos are getting more use
than they had in a few years.
When you come right down to it, all the major DSLRs are works in progress,
and all of them are very good. Some are just better at some things than
others. Choices are nice, as long as we don't spend more time reading
dpreview reviews than taking pictures. . . (oops!) :-)
--Peter
Rob Harrison wrote:
>...at Glazer's. Nice viewfinder! Especially compared to the D70. That'd be
>enough to swing my vote, if it came down to it.
>
>Slippery slope? Only time will tell. When it comes out next year, the 7-14mm
>DZ zoom, if it's well-corrected for distortion and good out to the edges,
>may obviate my need for a shift lens. That, Skip's enthusiasm for the E-1
>and Peter Klein's recently posted images taken with MF Zuikos have really
>piqued my interest.
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|