Olympus Digital Cameras

Olympus E-3 Hands-On Preview

by Shawn Barnett

Look and feel. Aimed squarely at the Nikon D300 and Canon 40D, it's no surprise that the Olympus E-3 is big and teeming with buttons and controls. Its overall feel is very tight, solid, hefty, and well-thought-out. It is easily the finest experience I've had with an Olympus SLR, and probably the best Live View experience I've had with any SLR to date.

The Olympus E-3's large pentaprism protrudes proudly above its sloping shoulders, just a bit higher than its competitors. Inside is a real glass pentaprism that's bigger and brighter than any Olympus has offered on its Four-thirds cameras. Its 1.15x viewfinder is big and bright, appearing just slightly larger than the Canon 40D, despite the E-3's smaller sensor size.

The Olympus E-3's viewfinder status display runs along the bottom, not off to the right as on the E-410 and E-510. It's still a little tight to see all of the frame plus the status display with my glasses on, but there's a nice big rubber eyepiece protector to prevent my glasses from scratching.

The Olympus E-3's grip is very comfortable, shaped a little differently from the E-510, a little less aggressive on the forward curve, which gives the middle finger a more confident grip overall. It's also a little fatter and contoured, with a nice, tacky rubber surface for excellent traction.

Though it looks a little high in pictures, the Olympus E-3's shutter button is in just the right position when I grip the camera, with a nice finger well to guide me to the button. On the rear, the thumb grip is so comfortable it's easy to forget it's a grip at all. Function and AF-point selection buttons are nearby, but not easy to press accidentally.

Olympus has moved the Olympus E-3's Main Dial on the back relative to the more recent models, but this is indeed where it's located on the Olympus E-1, so they stuck with what upgrading E-1 owners will be used to. Also, both the E-410 and E-510 had no monochrome status display on the top deck, so there was room for a top-mounted Main Dial. The Olympus E-3's dial does not have as good a feel as the metallic dial on the E-510, but it does have good, firm detents. The same goes for the Sub-dial on the front of the Olympus E-3's grip.

Speaking of dials, there's no Mode Dial on the Olympus E-3, instead you press a button on the top deck, left of the pentaprism, and roll the Main or Sub-dial, while changes appear on the Status display.

The E-3's four-way navigator, which Olympus calls an Arrow pad, is well-positioned for easy access, and it's even angled a bit toward the right to accommodate the thumb's angle of attack. Other buttons on the back and top are clearly marked for easy comprehension. The Olympus E-3's rear LCD also serves as a Status display whose settings are accessible via a press of the center OK button.

The Olympus E-3's Power switch is located in a familiar place for Canon prosumer SLR owners, just off the lower right corner of the LCD display.

Opening the Olympus E-3's Card cover is awkward at first, but if you just rock the camera to the left and hold it in your left hand, a simple upward flip of the right thumb moves the release lever and the door pops open to reveal not only a CF card slot, but an xD-Picture Card slot as well.

Build. The Olympus E-3's body is a die-cast magnesium alloy whose two shells pretty well completely enclose the E-3 for a very solid feel. Olympus says they use a Thixomold process to make these shells, a method that promises greater durability, with less potential for bubbles or seams in the magnesium alloy shell structures. We don't know whether other manufacturers do the same, but this low-temperature technique is one of three major methods to cast this increasingly popular metal, and is supposed to give better crystalline structure to the material than the more common hot die-cast method.