330 vs Sony R1 Live View
- Thread starter weekh
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I'm not pleased with the e330 and the 14-45mm lens.
I bought this cam mainly for the live lcd but it is a half-bake product that does not provide the exact image that will be rendered.
The image produced isn't impressive. Don't really like the colour produced by the cam. Image not really pin sharp and is extremely distorted in the wide end (yet to verify at the long end). Although CA seldom occure, but when it does, the blue fringes bleed badly. Bad noise at ISO 100 during long exposure (1 min).
The 3 focus points are too close together (missed the Sony R1's freely selectable focus points!).
Instruction manual is too brief omitting important details and features.
Battery sucks - takes too long to charge and last briefly just like a man suffering from premature ejectulation.
No LCD display, even in those digicams that's supposed to be WYSIWYG, I have used before ever produce exactly what was eventually rendered and even what was rendered was not the best that they could be and always needed post-processing. What's worse is that with most DSLRs, what's displayed when reviewing the shots taken is not the same as what's recorded by the camera. Usually what's recorded is worse than what's displayed on the LCD giving me the wrong impression that the shot was OK and need not be retaken. It is a general advice that we can't use the LCD display to judge the accuracy of colours and the real image quality. 
So it doesn't bother me one bit that the colours on the LCD are not actually what I wanted them to be finally. Would be nice if they were though.
This would be the first time any user ever complained about the Olympus colours which is usually one of the reasons why most people switched to Olympus in the first place. That shot of your daughter looks very good to me. You mean it is not taken with the E-330?
The 14-45mm lens does have a tendency to exhibit perspective distortion at the wide end but not in the tele end. Then again, at some of the angles that I have seen in your images, I would be surprised if there was no perspective distortion in the first place.:dunno:
The 14-45mm is reputedly the best kit lens of any brand of entry-level DSLRs. It is not as good as the 14-54mm (the kit lens of the E1) of course but better than most consumer grade Canon lenses I have used so far. However, most people who are used to the default sharpness of a P&S digicam might find the default sharpness of any DSLR to be rather soft. If that's the case with you, just increase the sharpness in the camera setting if you are shooting jpeg and during RAW processing if shooting RAW. Then again, I thought you do have a DSLR before the E-330. I'm a stickler for sharpness myself and always use a macro lens with both my 20D and E-330 for the close-ups and portraits. As a result of which, the ZD 50mm or 35mm macro is almost always on my E-330 full time.
I would agree with you that 3 AF points are insufficient and are too close for those who like to shoot with off-centred AF points. I prefer to shoot only with the centre AF point and find it faster to use AFL and recompose if I want to focus on subjects that's are located off-centred, in which case you might say that for me 1 AF point would be enough.
For long exposure shots, I hope you have turned on Noise Reduction (pg 87 of the Advanced Manual). I have yet to come across a camera that comes with a manual that's as detailed as I would want it to be but the Advanced Manual that comes with the E-330 is better than most at 197 pages and an Acrobat file size of >20M.
The battery is not as bad as that. I have shot for more than a day with a fully charged battery on Live-View and flash when I was on vacations overseas without much problem. A brand new fully drained rechargeable battery does not reach full capacity on the first charge. It only does so after a few full discharge/recharge cycles. This is not peculiar to the Lithium-ion battery used by the E-330 but is the basic characteristic of all rechargeable batteries. If after a few cycles, you are still getting too few shots out of it, then you might have a 'lemon' battery. In any case, you can get third party spare batteries with higher capacities at about $35 or so each for the E-330, something you can't do with any Sony digicam, R1 included.
So it doesn't bother me one bit that the colours on the LCD are not actually what I wanted them to be finally. Would be nice if they were though.This would be the first time any user ever complained about the Olympus colours which is usually one of the reasons why most people switched to Olympus in the first place. That shot of your daughter looks very good to me. You mean it is not taken with the E-330?
The 14-45mm lens does have a tendency to exhibit perspective distortion at the wide end but not in the tele end. Then again, at some of the angles that I have seen in your images, I would be surprised if there was no perspective distortion in the first place.:dunno:
The 14-45mm is reputedly the best kit lens of any brand of entry-level DSLRs. It is not as good as the 14-54mm (the kit lens of the E1) of course but better than most consumer grade Canon lenses I have used so far. However, most people who are used to the default sharpness of a P&S digicam might find the default sharpness of any DSLR to be rather soft. If that's the case with you, just increase the sharpness in the camera setting if you are shooting jpeg and during RAW processing if shooting RAW. Then again, I thought you do have a DSLR before the E-330. I'm a stickler for sharpness myself and always use a macro lens with both my 20D and E-330 for the close-ups and portraits. As a result of which, the ZD 50mm or 35mm macro is almost always on my E-330 full time.
I would agree with you that 3 AF points are insufficient and are too close for those who like to shoot with off-centred AF points. I prefer to shoot only with the centre AF point and find it faster to use AFL and recompose if I want to focus on subjects that's are located off-centred, in which case you might say that for me 1 AF point would be enough.
For long exposure shots, I hope you have turned on Noise Reduction (pg 87 of the Advanced Manual). I have yet to come across a camera that comes with a manual that's as detailed as I would want it to be but the Advanced Manual that comes with the E-330 is better than most at 197 pages and an Acrobat file size of >20M.
The battery is not as bad as that. I have shot for more than a day with a fully charged battery on Live-View and flash when I was on vacations overseas without much problem. A brand new fully drained rechargeable battery does not reach full capacity on the first charge. It only does so after a few full discharge/recharge cycles. This is not peculiar to the Lithium-ion battery used by the E-330 but is the basic characteristic of all rechargeable batteries. If after a few cycles, you are still getting too few shots out of it, then you might have a 'lemon' battery. In any case, you can get third party spare batteries with higher capacities at about $35 or so each for the E-330, something you can't do with any Sony digicam, R1 included.
Maybe I'm just too harsh and my expectation is too high on the e330.
I just prefer the colour rendered by the CZ lens on the R1.
And the 14-45mm kit lens may not meet my expectation since I'm also used to all the L, CZ and Leica lenses....
Maybe I'll need some time to get use to it and decide if I should replace the kit lens with something better.
Rainbow effect without any filters!
I've never encounter a lens flaring so badly before... kind of interesting.
The 14-45mm is def not a lens to shoot into the light. 4get about sunset / sunrise shots with this lens.
Wonder how its bigger brother 14-54mm perform....
I've never encounter a lens flaring so badly before... kind of interesting.
The 14-45mm is def not a lens to shoot into the light. 4get about sunset / sunrise shots with this lens.
Wonder how its bigger brother 14-54mm perform....
well, weekh... seems like the system is not suitable for you.
Sony R1 is your answer. Or may be the Sony A100 with CZ lenses. Who know's one day, Sony's A200 will have the Liveview that you are looking for, and by that time, you would collected enough of CZ lens.
Anyway, those pictures you posted are quite nice.
Sony R1 is your answer. Or may be the Sony A100 with CZ lenses. Who know's one day, Sony's A200 will have the Liveview that you are looking for, and by that time, you would collected enough of CZ lens.
Anyway, those pictures you posted are quite nice.
weekh said:
I really dunno what do U want really??? :sweat:
This photo is came out of my camera no post-processing involve just resize only.
Lens wise is Kit Lens, 14~45mm of cos...
weekh said:
Then again maybe you should have waited for the launch of the Panasonic DMC L1 instead of buying the E-330. Seems that changes to white balance and exposure compensation can be viewed in the Live-View mode for the L1. It also comes with a Leica 14-50 mm f/2.8-F3.5 lens with OIS which should satisfy your desire for such branded glasses. Unfortunately, the LCD display is not as articulated as that of the E-330. Oh well, nothing is perfect, right? :dunno:
tomcat said:
I loved the L1 design!
But with a 1 sec delay? That must be joking! Not to mention that the LCD is fixed dead.
Yes. I must admit that I've sold off my R1 in a rush and bought the e330 too fast. Should have kept the R1 and wait for the new Olympus pro body.
weekh said:
Why did you get rid of the R1? I thought that you were very happy with it.
Anyway, I think it's just a learning curve with the E-330. It actually have a lot of advanced features that I haven't even look into yet. Also, do play around with the 40-150mm lens. It is a very good lens too and if the 14-45mm is really not acceptable, you might want to consider the 14-54mm or 11-22mm. Many of my vacation trip photos taken with the 40-150mm and 11-22mm had turned out rather well.
weekh said:
I was in Tokyo recently to get the L1, but it was not launched before I returned. Also, for me, the E330 is only a stop gap measure until the E-3 arrives. The only issue I have is with blown highlights, but other than that, quite a good camera.
Well, the E-330 is a DSLR with a Live-View feature which helps to open up the scope and creativity of our photography and allows us to take pictures from positions that are difficult to achieve with normal DSLRs because of public propriety, lack of a change of clothes or a body of a agile and nimble contortionist.drakon09 said:
Take for example these shots...
They were all taken with the E-330 on the ground. I could have taken them with a non-Live-View DSLR (and have done so before with my cat pics) but I might have to lie flat on my belly on wet soggy ground in a very public area (like in the 2nd pic), not to mention risking a strained back in the process, to compose the shots through the view-finder.
Of course, if we don't intend to take such shots, then a non-Live-View DSLR will do just fine.
tomcat said:Well, the E-330 is a DSLR with a Live-View feature which helps to open up the scope and creativity of our photography and allows us to take pictures from positions that are difficult to achieve with normal DSLRs because of public propriety, lack of a change of clothes or a body of a agile and nimble contortionist.
They were all taken with the E-330 on the ground. I could have taken them with a non-Live-View DSLR (and have done so before with my cat pics) but I might have to lie flat on my belly on wet soggy ground in a very public area (like in the 2nd pic), not to mention risking a strained back in the process, to compose the shots through the view-finder.
Of course, if we don't intend to take such shots, then a non-Live-View DSLR will do just fine.
I concur, Live View was never meant to replace the VF. It *adds* dimension to your photography.
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