Olympus E-420 First Thoughts

[David Rasnake]

When the Olympus E-420 was announced a few weeks back, there was lots of talk from the company about how compact and light their latest entry-level 10.0 megapixel DSLR was. With lots of smallest/lightest/fastest claims bandied about out there, we were appropriately skeptical. As it turns out, though, they weren't kidding.

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In its current group of competitors, if the Nikon D60 is a sedan, the Canon XSi an SUV, and the Pentax K200D a school bus, the E-420's like a Mini Cooper. While it's not that much smaller or that much lighter than its closest competitors when the hard specs are pulled out, reductions in key dimensions certainly make it look and, more importantly, feel smaller.

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Using the open-format Four Thirds lens mount and sensor size, the E-420 does quite a job of delivering on what has always been one of the selling points of this smaller-than-APS-C sensor technology: compactness. From a specs and features standpoint, Olympus has pushed all the right buttons with this one, offering up the kinds of features (live view, face detection, a bevy of scene modes) aimed to entice consumers over from point-and-shoots and ease the transition to a DSLR. (For a complete rundown of this camera's specs, take a look at the recent Olympus E-420 announcement.)

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As noted, with the conventional 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit zoom mounted, this setup has the size and weight of mid-sized ultrazoom. Mount up the kit-option 25mm f/2.8 Zuiko prime seen in our shots of the E-420 and things get even more compact. The diminutive 25mm, which performs like a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera with the Olympus's 2x crop factor, makes it easy to see (or remember, if you're of a certain age) why 50mm primes once dominated the amateur SLR landscape. It's wide enough to take in a landscape, compressed enough to take nice "people shots," and in the case of this lens, both small and fast enough to be unobtrusive to either shooter or subject. In spite of its physically small optics, initial impressions are that it's quite a capable piece of glass.

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I didn't do a good job of controlling the highlights in this outdoor shot, but there's still a lot to like here: good sharpness (even wide open), soft bokeh, plenty of contrast, and just a hint of added warmth in the color rendering versus the stock zoom. I personally believe that shooting with a prime changes the way you look at the photographic possibilities in a given scene, and I think lots of users interested in taking compelling snapshots (in the best possible sense of that word) will find that this lens does a lot of things well. We'll give it a more thorough look in the coming weeks, but pushing a new prime aimed squarely at entry-level shooters is an interesting move that has some potential if Olympus can sell general consumers on the concept.

Back to the E-420 itself, while I doubt I'll ever prefer live view over a good old-fashion viewfinder, the move to contrast-detection auto focus (the E-420 has Contrast AF and a "Hybrid" contrast- and phase-detection setting, as well as traditional Phase Detect AF) in this generation of DSLRs is making the system make a lot more sense. Olympus likes to boast that they pioneered live view, and with the E-420 they've definitely made it a lot better. We'll do some timings testing to see what the difference turns out to be, but Contrast AF makes the Olympus feel nearly as quick as a compact camera in good light.

With a slightly more pronounced hand grip area than we saw on the E-410, the latest Olympus is appreciably comfortable to hold for longer periods of time. Control placement is good, with an obvious button for activating live view. What's not always so obvious, however, are the arrangement of Olympus's menus.

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The shooting info screen, where all the basic parameters are adjusted, is a bit visually busy, but there will be more to say on menu navigation once we've had time to dig in and learn the system a little better. Check back soon for the complete review to see how well things play out for the E-420.

Additional Sample Images

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[usapatriot]

I really like Olympus's E-510 and E-420 series but there are three things that I really don't like.

1. Less dynamic range than other comparable DSLR's.
2. More noise at higher ISO's than other comparable DSLR's.
3. Focus by wire manual focus.

Other than that I really do like Olympus's DSLR cameras.

[David Rasnake]

I've seen the dynamic range and noise claims, and while I won't argue with the solid testing that's gone into these conclusions, I'm not entirely convinced on how much of a difference it makes in capturing real world images. Obviously, more dynamic range is good, but the difference in real images tends to be subtle, depending (of course) on the image composition and such. The noise is again noticeably worse, but still much better than a compact camera - in an entry-level model like this, I have to think that noise performance will prove to be more than adequate based on the standards of the class, though only thorough testing and analysis will tell.

Since I did the control shots for the E-420 this afternoon, I can fuel the fire a little bit, however...

With the disclaimer that the reviews referenced below are still in progress and I'll defer to the final judgments of our reviewers on how to interpret these results, but I can at least show you what our ISO 1600 test crop shows. Here's the 100% crop from the E-420 at ISO 1600:

1600c.jpg

Compare that to the crop from the similarly priced and speced, APS-C sensor Nikon D60 at ISO 1600:

1600_crop.JPG

(The crops are different aspect ratios because they're cropped, largely for aesthetic reasons, to match the aspect ratio of the original, which are, of course, different in this case.)

Draw your own conclusions...

dr

[usapatriot]

Well to me it seems that the Olympus E-420 has a bit more noise than the Nikon D60 however, both seem to be holding on to detail pretty well.

Thanks for the comparison shots!

[David Rasnake]

Thanks for the comparison shots!

Absolutely. More to come on both of these cameras in the next few weeks.

dr

[jetstar]

...if the Nikon D60 is a sedan, the Canon XSi an SUV, and the Pentax K200D a school bus, the E-420's like a Mini Cooper.

Nice analogy! Thanks for the review!

[andycincy]

Question - I thought I read that this camera does not have any image stabilization. Is this true? If it DOES have IS, it looks like a dream camera to move into a DSLR for us wanting to move up but afraid to spend $1,000 to do so.

[Jim Keenan]

I've got the camera now for review, and it does not have mechanical image stabilization. There is a scene setting for "digital" image stabilization which bumps up the ISO to maintain fast shutter speeds as a means to try and insure camera shake is minimized.

[BigJob]

I'm not sure that "high ISO" performance should be used, or even considered, as that great a performance measure of a camera. Back in the days of film, I don't recall people being so obsessively concerned with all these ridiculously high ISO's and things of the like.

12800 ISO!! Self-cleaning sensors!! Live-view!! Good God, for the vast majority of us it's stuff we really don't need. I think a lot of people have been sold a bill of goods for a lot of unnecessary stuff(ing). The marketeers have cleverly inculcated a "sense of need" for consumers and now the tail is wagging the dog. It's a lot of BS.

To my thinking what's still lacking in the E-420 is a good body - we've got plenty enough bells and whistles now. How about a good solid body with seals and increased reliability and durability? I'll bet now that the E-520 going to be yet another retread too...

Anyone take any good pictures lately?

[usapatriot]

I think ISO performance is a very important part of measuring digital camera performance. It allows you to see how the camera will perform is lower lighting and allows you to handhold the camera whereas to back in the day even if you loaded a camera with 800 speed film you still had to use a tripod, now you can get relatively clean ISO 1600 and hand hold the shot. Modern image stabilization helps.

Also, remember that film grain is actually a lot more desirable than digital noise to most people, if digital noise looked exactly like film grain a lot of people wouldn't mind noise as much.