Why choose Olympus DSLR over other brands??

[Stanly]

I'm quite curious about the above question. What was it that make you choose olympus DSLR?? What are the advantages and limitations of Olympus DSLR system??

[u2nofear]

Advantage:focus length multiplier 2x , taking advantage to shooting long distance ;everything x2,example 50-200mm lens, become 100mm-400mm distance....Canon and nikon are 1.5x, not sure! ;someone can correct me!

limitation: can't not take preset WB with HoYA R72 infra red filter only use software to adjust WB (E-500 model, not sure other model)

[plastic]

Zuiko Digital lenses.

[Stanly]

Originally Posted by plastic Zuiko Digital lenses.

Any pictures to prove your point??

[plastic]

Originally Posted by Stanly Any pictures to prove your point??

There are a lot of reviews and analysis on the internet. If I am able to "prove my point", I would not be posting my pics here. I will be charging a king's ransom for the rights to see/use them.

But seeing a photography exhibition and a talk with the photographer convinced me. I was a Nikon fan for more than a decade, and have since become an Olympian.

[Stanly]

^ Wow....that was surprising (change from Nikon to Olympus).....

[u2nofear]

Originally Posted by plastic There are a lot of reviews and analysis on the internet. If I am able to "prove my point", I would not be posting my pics here. I will be charging a king's ransom for the rights to see/use them. But seeing a photography exhibition and a talk with the photographer convinced me. I was a Nikon fan for more than a decade, and have since become an Olympian.

From Nikon what model ? can share your experience between nikon and olympus here

[OlyFlyer]

Originally Posted by plastic ... was a Nikon fan for more than a decade, and have since become an Olympian.

Well, very interesting. I always dreamed about having Nikon one day, That dream has lasted for some 30 years now, and I am still dreaming. When I went from film to digital a few weeks ago, I chose Oly because I have all the old Oly stuff, and because I just think D50 is just not good enough.

So, why choose Oly DSLR over other brands? For me it is just pure simple money. For the same amount of money, that is the best I could get. Also, I like the supersonic CCD cleaner.

[ykkok]

Very simple, it simply saves you time and money.

Without the need to keep visiting the service centre for dust cleaning and pixel mapping, it saves me lot of time.

Most of the Zuiko lenses are very good. I dont need to upgrade lenses so frequently.

Lenses are very light comparatively. For eg. a 50-200 f2.8-3.5 lens is equivalent to 100-400mm lens.

Other opinions here:
http://www.mytikas.org/portal/viewtopic.php?t=287

[ch5800]

It is the right mix of price, performance and feature for me.

Out of my mind, maybe the reasons are:
I don't like to visit service center,
I don't like to clean CCD myself, or worry too much about the camera than taking photo
14-54 (80%)+14-150 (15%)is enough for me, (still thinking about 11-24 :> )
Old Zuiko lens still works on it like magic,
I love the construction grade of olympus camera at the price point that I paid,
I don't like to post process a lot
I like innovative non-main stream things
...

that's just me.

[tomcat]

I have a Canon 20D which I hardly ever used any more since getting the E-300 and now E-330.

Though the 20D is really great for high ISO shoots (especially at ISO 1600), the jpeg out-of-camera all required extensive post-processing and the colour balance is always off (too warm).

Olympus DSLRs give jpegs that required much less post-processing and the auto white balance is much more accurate than that of the 20D. The AWB of the E-330 is even better than the E-300 in my opinion.

As have been frequently reported, Olympus colours are very attractive and distinctive and makes Canon colours downright bland.

Olympus lenses are really good value for money and not expensive at all if you compare apple for apple. The 2 kit lenses are superb, especially the 40-150mm and are almost L-lens quality. I say this because they beat my Canon EF 28-135mm IS and 75-300mm IS lenses hands-down in sharpness and image quality despite the fact that the Canon lenses cost twice as much and has IS. The only way to that kind of image quality from my 20D is to buy L-lenses which are even more expensive and heavy.

That lead me to the other advantage of the Olympus system - weight. The Oly lenses are much lighter and more compact than other makes' lenses of equivalent quality and are great for travelling.

[Cliffy]

Great thread, I am set on Olympus now!

Oly is now successfuly drilled into me.

[Stanly]

^ Wow.....Cliffy is "poisoned".....in a good way that is.....

[raycsk]

My personal humble reasons:

- SSWF aka dust buster as I like outdoor photography
- Size and weight of lens for the telephoto range
- Color reproduction
- Able to take Jpeg and Raw at the same time (not sure if other brands have such a feature)
- At minus 20 Deg C the cam could still work. A colleague's D70 had to be turned off and on periodically.

What I want is to have the ability to choose from a wide range of lens so Canon has impressed me. On the other hand my greed is impractical for my simple needs. Zuiko's range for me is enough: 50mm, 11-22mm, 50-200mm and kit lens.

I too upgraded from the Camedia series C3040 which got me into underwater photography.

Imagine the C3040 in macro able to produce pics so sharp the ridge lines of my fingerprints can be seen. That just blew me away 5 years ago.

[Maltese]

Olympians, please keep coming...I want to know more about the application of this brand on specific application, such as nature, bird, sports etc...are the bodies and lenses really comparable to the big boys?

[plastic]

Interesting to see that you guys consider Olympus a cheaper solution to Nikon and Canon. I see Olympus as "affordable Leica" (High Grade and Super High Grade) but definitely MORE expensive than the Canon and Nikon lenses. Yeah, you can bitch and whine about the prosumer cameras. But what about the E-1? And the coming E-whatever (they say Photokina 2006 announcement). But the thing is, among the crop of Japanese lenses, Olympus far surpasses every one made by Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Minolta/Konica, etc. I know this claim is subjective, just like some like Carl Zeiss Planar and some Tessar and some Leica M series, but I am comparing lenses to the German grades, and believe me, Olympus is the only Japanese lens maker who can hold water again the German throughbreds.

Not forgetting giving credit to the Russian lens makers, but poor QC and well, being hard to source makes them drop out of my "want" list.

Personally, where I think glass quality is, the Super High Grades ZD lenses are comparable, yes, comparable to Leica and Carl Zeiss Planar lenses. No doubt ZD lenses cannot match the famous Tessar lenses for sharpness (its really that amazing), but still, when it comes to colour & resolution balance, ZD High and Super High Grades is up there among the legends. Hence my fascination with ZD since the launch of the E-1 a few years back.

I have used only Nikkor manual primes in the 80s, and I loved them. When AF were introduced, somehow I feel that quality of Nikon lenses has started dropping since. Zooms honestly does glass no justice, but then again, I am using ZD zooms these days (ever wondered by the 50mm Macro is so darn sharp and colours saturated?) well... that is the advantage and potential of primes. Wish I have all the money in the world, I would die for the 150mm Super High Grade... but in other parts of the world, the money can buy you a car... whew... what an investment... but an amazing lens... if you are a pro, that is one lens you WANT to have in your arsenal...

I don't know Canon that well, only having played with my buddies' L series whenever I have the chance with their 20D (funny that my mates usually uses 20D + L lens combos)... and I don't like them... I find Canon lenses pretty "flat"... it might work for some people, but not me. I love contrast, I love colour details in contrast, I love saturated colours, I love intensity and depth which only, yes, only ZD lenses (and Leica M) can give.

The other area that makes a difference are sensors, which is a different topic altogether. This will open up to a lot of arguments. So let me make it simple and say what I feel... the E-1 is the closest thing to film. The E-330 is getting too clean and somewhat "artificial" and I will never use the Canon 1D even if it is given to me... its a terrible camera. (Shoot me, but that is what I feel). I shot on film all my life, took forever to go digital, and found the platform that gives me that lattitude and colour depth that I have been looking for... if low noise is important for you, by all means go for Canon, if you like Nikon, well, go ahead. I am not converting you. Its your choice and I respect you for that.

But for me. Its Olympus for the Digital era. The professional body choices are limited, but then Oly made them good. The lenses might not come in many flavours, but consider this, of all the lenses released by Nikon, how many are really good lenses? Kit lens for kit lens, compare Oly kit lenses to the other makers, enough said. ZD comes in small selection, but they make them very good, and that makes me happy. At least I know I can slowly save up for the lens I want, makes me want to take more assignments to afford the better lenses... and they are all worthy investments.

Olympus is definitely NOT cheap, but truly a bang for the buck.

[VR Man]

I check out the following 2 websites to decide on the image quality of the Oly, Canon & nikon.

1) http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldw...304/index.html
2) http://www.myfourthirds.com/

The first website is mostly Canon and Nikon DSLRs, with only 1-2 guys using the E-1. The second website is all E-system Olympus DSLRs. The good thing about both wesbites is that it gives you detailed info on type of DSLR body and lens used.

After much viewing, being a pro nikon guy from FM2 days, I was totally sold on the Olympus E1 colors! Something about it, there is an X-factor to it.

[tao]

I am seeing a lot of similarities between you guys and myself.

To keep things short, I will like to say that before the digital photography era, I was a Nikon FE2 user, it was a hand-me-down from my Dad together with the very nice 28mm F2.8 Nikkor. I bought a used 50mm F1.8 and I was all set for all the photographic needs I had while learning photography. The 2 Nikkors were terrific lenses, both in terms of built quality and quality of the optics. The results on film were tremendous and I never bothered getting an AF SLR when they were all the rage in my varsity days. Curious how one can be satisified and can do with just 2 primes back then but that was what I did.

This is why I do not understand the comments about the 'shortage' of 4/3 lenses in Olympus's line-up. Every single lens you get in the range is absolutely the best of class/price so there is nothing to complain about, other than the lack of image stabilisation, which is appears to be critical for the modern 'budding' photographer.

My first digicam was the C3040Z in YR2000 with its terrific F1.8 lens and there was no turning back from there onwards.

[Zeke]

like plastic, very impressed with Zuiko digital lens. Do a search here and google and you'll see yourself a list of answers to your Qs. This is also why I'm now holding an E500 and never been happy since then.

[plastic]

Originally Posted by Zeke This is also why I'm now holding an E500 and never been happy since then.

Huh?? You want something else instead??