Johnny Johnson wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm thinking of picking up an E-330 for wildflower photography now
> that the price has dropped to ~$550 range. The reason it appeals to
> me is that the live view, tiltable LCD should make for easier
> photography of low growing subjects but I'm concerned about two
> things. Can anyone give me any first hand feedback about how well
> the image can be seen on the LCD in direct sunlight and also if using
> the 10x (?) zoom on the LCD gives good results when manually focusing?
>
Dpreview says "....switch to 10x magnify mode, which is extremely useful
for checking focus (in a static shooting situation)."
Lots of detail about live view with sample images of the LCD
<http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse330/page7.asp>.
I've been very tempted off and on by the E-330. Clearly the finest SLR
solution for Macro ever designed. The Mode B 10x view on a large, high
def LCD with real DOF is better than anything one can ever see in a
viewfinder.
I also like the idea of the Mode A live view. The range of angles
available without a ladder or difficult body contortions is great and
the candid possibilities are greater than with a conventional SLR design.
One down side that I just can't believe is that the live view display
doesn't reflect the exposure being made. That is different than all the
gazillion non SLR digicams, which makes it non-intuitive for anyone who
uses them, like me. It also misses the opportunity to remedy the one
fault of all optical viewfinders, rangefinder, SLR, etc. by giving a
rough visual indication of the exposure chosen. That doesn't much matter
in auto modes, but this is a camera designed specifically for manual
work in macro.
That one inexplicable, to me, design decision may have been what tipped
the scales against the E-330 for me early on. I have used digicams with
LCDs that show a rough preview of the exposure on the LCD for long
enough now to value it a great deal and I'm sure I would screw up with
an LCD live view without it.
The other obvious thing to consider is the sensor noise. Although not
ideal for me for a general purpose camera, at least it doesn't follow
the current digicam trend of megapixels at the cost of visible noise
even at low isos.
Then for me, there is the issue of lenses. I already have AF lens
coverage of 19-300 mm (and the 300 is effectively 500 mm for most uses)
and an excellent AF macro lens in EF mount. I'm not about to to carry
around two camera kits, one for macro and another for everything else.
So to take the 330 out as my only camera on an outing would require at
least a couple of ZD lenses, something like 11-22 and 18-180 plus
whatever I use for macro, ZD or OM with adapter. That makes the expense
considerable. I was hoping that Oly would come up with a Canyon killer
for the next pro body. That would allow a complete system change, with
330 and E-x sharing lenses. Seems unlikely though. :-(
Guess I'll just get an angle finder for the 5D one of these
days........... How long before N or C come out with Blue-tooth live
view to be seen on a remote LCD and/or as heads up on my glasses? Not
all that long, I'll bet.
Moose
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