Camera Labs

Having used the Olympus E-P1 for the last couple week, being so impressed with its image quality and ease of use, plus having already decided to purchase the 12-60mm f2.8-3.5 Olympus lens with the adapter for it.

I'v been thinking that perhaps I should get the E3 now to replace my current Canon 50D and its 24-70 f2.8 L lens which I have been mostly using since the purchase of my E-P1.

This way I can interchange the lenses and not have to duplicate lenses of the same focal length.
I have also been reading some good things about Olympus that I was unaware of for example there build quality and quality of there glass is very good.

What are your thoughts on the E3 with the 12-60mm lens vs Canon 50d with the 24-70 L lens, will I be happy with the change over, Build quality and is paramount to me obviously with ease of use and a good selection of lenses and quality images.

Are the quality of pics coming from the Canon going to be better then the E3 with the above lens setup.

What are your thought on my reasoning, keeping in mind that I have not spent a huge amount on Canon gear yet and will most likely recover 2 thirds of it.

I mostly enjoy photographing architecture and nature and am getting into low light photography.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

Hi sud,

May I wish you a warm welcome to the CameraLabs forum.

As you are asking for advice on more than one brand I've decided to move this thread over to our "Buying a new camera but undecided on brand?" section so that it will achieve better visibility for the Canon fanboys. But I've left a "shadow" behind in the Olympus section so everyone can find it from there as well.

Regarding your question, I was tempted to say "go for it" as the E3 coupled with the ED 12-60mm 1:2.8-4.0 SWD is pretty sweet, as Gordon's review shows. BTW, I assume this is the lens you are talking about as I couldn't find a 12-60mm f2.8-3.5.

My only caveat, assuming you are happy with the lower resolution of the E3 and the different ergonomics, is that by ditching Canon you are also losing access to their tilt and shift lenses which might be an issue for the future if you pursue your architecture photography. Here's why.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi Bob,

Firstly thank you for the welcome, Im happy to have finally joined.

Yes I was indeed talking about the 12-60mm f2.8-4 SWD, I have watched Gordon's review twice and love the images its capable of producing in the right hands, The image Iv seen on Flickr are simply amazing!

Im hoping the lower resolution will not be a problem, our local camera store Ted's is getting one in for me to take a look at. Thank you for reminding me of the TS lenses in all the excitement had forgotten about them. I have not had the opportunity to try them yet but have certainly been reading up on them.


Sud

I also have both E-P1 and 50D, and would suggest you think about how you use them. To me the two cameras cover different areas. Consider the lens set you really need on either system and buy accordingly. To me the E-P1 is only going to be a wide angle shooter, as it loses its size advantage if you end up putting a long telephoto lens on it. The 50D is much more serious, and can be kitted out as such.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Iv put considerable thought into this and I would like to shoot in the 7-14mm and 14-140 range with the E-P1. There is a Panasonic G Vario 14-140mm and a Panasonic 7-14mm lens which I could purchase, the 2 would be around $4500.00 AUD, so thought If I purchased the lenses in that range for the Olympus mount I might as well get good glass and could use them with both the E3 and E-P1 with an adapter.

The big question is, will the E3 compare to my Canon, I know it wont in resolution but seems it will in build quality and lens selection as well as good quality images.

Thoughts?

This has a lot more to do with the photographer. You can take good photos with both DSLRs.

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PhilipGoh.com

I do realize that, just wanting to know from someone with experience using the E3 that I can expect similar quality from the users experience and a comparable outcome.

Thanks for your input though.

When I was choosing my first DSLR, the choice eventually came down to the E-3 or the original Canon 5D. I tend to use cameras mostly when travelling. The weather sealing and the rock solid build quality of the E-3 eventualy swung it.

Thank you, this is the type of input Im looking for.

The E3 + 12-60 is a hell of a combination. Once you play with it, you will fall in love. The autofocus is just ludicrously fast.

And together, they form a completely weather sealed kit that you just wont see on anything short of a Canon 1D or Nikon D3. This comes in handy so much more often than you think. Just yesterday it started drizzling while I was at a picnic with my camera but I had no worries because both my lens and my camera where up the task.

You are going to be taking a bit of a specification hit when going from the 50d to E3. I dont recall off the top of my head all of the specs of the 50d, but I believe it has quite a faster continuous frame rate, and higher resolution, higher max ISO, etc.

Faster frame rate may or may not be useful to you. 5 FPS is more than enough for me in the E3. Unless you're doing some serious sport photography, you wont even know what to do with 5fps. I actually do sports photography now and again [automotive racing] and actually made do with the 3.5 from my 510.

Resolution is another thing that your probably do not need. People are still making do with 6mp in their Nikon D70s and such. The megapixel war is getting out of hand.

Olympus is known for having worse noise on their cameras than competing brands. The E3 has the cleanest images of all Olympus cameras so far and if shooting in RAW, you can get away with ISO2500 [ISO3200 is the limit, but its not very good]
the 50d will certainly do a lot more than that.

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E-3!
12-60 2.8-4.0
12-60 2.8-40 [Also going]
40-150 3.5-4.5
70-300 4.0-5.6
Fl-48

I really enjoy my E-3. While high ISO performance may not be as good as competitors, it is certainly not terrible. The noise produced by the E-3 (or the e-520 i own) is fine with me as long as i get proper exposure. also, the in body image stabilization really DOES work.



i took this shot in very low light at a venue, 1/30 of a second at iso2500 with the 50-200mm lens, which is a rather large lens to some. while you wont see the effects of the image stabilization in the viewfinder, it IS there.

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www.iandavisphoto.com
aim s/n: idotddot

Thats a great shot, thanks, all the comments seem to make me want to dive right in a go for the Oly,

However there is just one more thing which concerns me that was mentioned to me and I quote

"A large sensor is going to beat the same generation smaller sensor pretty-much every single time in terms of IQ for the same number of megapixels, especially noise in low light. With Canon you have also got the chance to go to an even larger sensor in the future- where the Olympus system will always be relegated to 4/3rds sized sensors due to the lens flange->sensor plane distance."

How much truth is in this and is it true?
Does this mean that if I do go with the Oly system that could well have to change the lenses again when they one day go to a larger sensor?

Sorry for all the questions, I intend spending a lot on this system and dont want surprises a couple years down the road.

Hi sud,


At the risk of stating the obvious it all depends on whether you want or need to go full-frame in the future. I started a couple of threads about full-frame sensors here and here and there's plenty more discussion on the forum. But it seems increasingly unlikely that we'll see a new full-frame camera sporting only 10MP so the benefit of going full-frame is to get more pixels rather than inherently better high ISO performance, though that can be simulated to a degree if the displayed image is of a size where adjacent pixels are combined together.

So if you don't anticipate a need for a huge pixel count or tilt & shift lenses (which aren't cheap!) and the feature set of the E3 is enough for your current needs then the consensus so far seems to be to ditch the 50D.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Looks like that settles it, Ill give the Oly a go, will post some pics as soon as I get it, Thanks to everyone for your input!

You should also consider the Olympus E-30. I personally prefer it to the E-3 (lighter, contrast AF in Live View, Mode Dial and the superiour new JPEG-Engine), but tastes are different in that matter.

Anyway, I don't think the 12-60mm would make a good combo with the EP-1, because it's way to heavy to hold in with streched out arms. The EP-1 is made to be used with smaller lenses and I don't think using it with the 12-60mm will be very convenient.

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Olympus E-30, ZD 9-18mm 4.0-5.6, ZD 50mm Makro 2.0, ZD 14-54mm 2.8-3.5, ZD 70-300 4.0-5.6

Light travel equipment:
Olympus EP-2, µZD 14-42mm , Panasonic 20mm 1.7 pancake.

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