Olympus E-1 Review

Olympus E-1 is the  first ever completely digital SLR system. The new E-1 is the first digital camera to adhere to the world’s only open standard for professional digital SLR photography, otherwise known as the Four Thirds Standard.

Based on the strict regulations of this new standard, all components and accessories for the new E1, from the image sensor and camera body, to the interchangeable lenses and flash units, have been exclusively designed to maximise performance potential. According to Olympus, the E-1 sets new benchmarks for professional image quality and performance, as well as eliminating lens incompatibility problems such as reduced wide-angle capability insufficient lens resolution and corner shading.

At the heart of Olympus E-1 lies a superior 4/3-type Full Frame Transfer CCD with 5.0 million effective pixels. Telecentric optics inside the E-1’s bespoke Zuiko Digital lenses enable transmitted light to strike the CCD’s photodiodes virtually at right-angles in order to maintain accurate colour, clarity and brightness from the centre to the periphery of the frame. The lens’ high resolving power also ensures that the CCD obtains the detail it needs to achieve its full potential.

The new standard has another advantage, in that lenses can be produced with particularly large apertures (f2.8/3.5 or larger), but with only half of the bulk and weight of their ‘analogue’ counterparts.

The camera’s splash-proof magnesium-alloy body weighs in at 660g, making it the lightest interchangeable digital lens SLR on the market. It also boasts the unique ability to self-clean its CCD via a ‘Supersonic Wave Filter’, which causes an ultra-high-speed vibration to shake off dust and other particles onto a special adhesive tape. In the speed stakes the E-1 does much to impress as well, and can capture 12 frames in seguence at 3fps in every format and quality mode (JPEG/TIFF/RAW). Exposure speeds range from 1/4,000 to 60 sec, and, in continuous AF mode, the E-1 can track subjects travelling at up to 50 km/h. ISO speeds ranging from 100 to 3,200 are available to boot. Furthermore, the Olympus E-1 is the first digital camera to incorporate both USB2.0 and FireWire high speed interfaces.

Tagged with: buy online • Olympus E-1 • review • splash-proof • zuiko

Filed under: Olympus

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