After exhaustive shooting with my E-510 over the past several months in anticipation of my E3 purchase - - - I finally sprung for the E3 body after much deliberation over which choice I would make for my heavier duty camera body - the choices being the Nikon D300 or Olympus E3, as I have lenses and bodies for both systems. Each camera model had features that were stronger than the other one, and features that were weaker than the other one. While I can make good use of the lowest noise at high ISO's (within the price range that I wish to spend on a body) and fastest most accurate tracking auto focus - I also push my gear to the limit in other ways by using it in adverse conditions and while I do not abuse my equipment, I do not pamper it but use it well and am not afraid of it getting banged around at times - and so a durable body, some weather resistance and sealing of both body and lenses are features that I can benefit from (I have not had good success in this area with my Nikons - have made innoperative my D70's, an 85mm lens and a D200 in the course of a year and less of purchase as a result of sand, water, mud and tripping on a set of stairs with my shins, hands, D200 and SB800 smacking the floor with a serious thud. I also appreciate the Live View feature with my E-510 and while with the D300 I can benefit in the same way, the articulating LCD screen of the E3 makes it a more valuable tool with this feature and one I will use on a regular basis on my paid assigments.

So of course, on getting home with the E3 2 weeks ago I immediately (i didn't even have to wait to try it out as it takes the same batteries as my E-510 which were already charged) had to go out and take a few extreme shots to see if there would be any images of use at slow shutter speeds and 3200 ISO. I shot a street scene in our small town and my dresser with the contents of my pockets on going to bed. Both shots were taken with the E3 and 12-60 Zuiko lens hand held with IS set to 1 - some processing in Adobe Lightroom:

1/13'th @ f8 : 3200 ISO : 12mm setting


1/15'th @ f4 : 3200 ISO : 52mm setting



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I shot in Jpeg (my standard). There is no cropping, but there is subtle tone adjustment, luminance noise reduction and sharpening using Adobe Lightroom. I don't have Neat Image on my Mac - just my PC work station - - - and so wasn't able to run these through that excellent program. It does a far better job at eliminating noise, keeping detail and cleaning up the image - than Lightrooms NR does. I'm moving this weekend and so will try that once I get settled in the new digs. I'll also try printing the files - which is far more valuable to me that what they look like on screen. The other night I printed out the 3200 ISO E3 and D300 test studio shots from dpreviews.com and found such a small amount of difference between the 2 cameras with that setup - even though there was more of a difference on screen. And when I ran the E3 file through Neat Image the print equaled and probably surpassed the D300 print quality. But the fact is that I have no intention of comparing the 2 cameras - I like Olympus brand and hopefully this camera will be a valuable tool for crating my photographic images.

A snapshot from my son and his wifes 10'th anniversary party a week ago. For indoor shots I set the E3 to Auto ISO with the range being 100 to 2000. This is one of the few shots that I took - my 7 year old grandson was the official photographer using my E3 (with grip) and 12-60mm lens to document the people who were there. It is really something to watch him handle my cameras like an old pro pushing all of the buttons and scrolling around the images on the screen.

This shot in my daughter and her husbands living room is of my grandson Mason and his uncle Jordan. Exposure is f4 @ 1/100 'th sec : 2000 ISO. 12-60mm lens was set to 52mm (equiv 104mm):




This is one of Mason's pictures of his sister laying on the carpet. Again shot at 2000 ISO - exposure f3.9 @ 1/40 'th sec - - - 12-60mm lens set to 45mm:



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I also have purchased the 70-300mm (140-600mm f4/5.6) recently so plan on trying that out on my E bodies.

The E3 is a fair chunk of camera. I told Mason that it was pretty heavy. I handed the camera to him and he said "that's not that heavy" and carried it all over the property for about 2 hours. Although if I had a flash on top, I think that may have put it over the top for him.

There are always all kinds of panicky looks from people and all kinds of chuckles at the way he handles the cameras. Most people would never give a child a camera and leave them to go where they want with it - let alone an expensive looking one like I have. I handed Mason his first digital camera (a point and shoot) to use when he was about 3 years old and at any family and friend functions where both he and I are there and I have my cameras with me, he gets to be the official photographer.

Being I only took about 3 or 4 shots at the start of the night, I will have to show you a few of the 200 Olympus E-3 shots that my 7 year old grandson Mason took from his unique LOW perspective.

Mason's Mother (10'th anniversary girl)
1600 ISO : f3.6 @ 1/80 'th



Mason's Father (my son - 10'th anniversary guy)
100 ISO : f5 @ 1/200 'th


Mason's 2 grandmothers and other grandpa
400 ISO : f7.1 @ 1/30 'th

Mason's Great Grandmother
800 ISO : f3.4 @ 1/60 'th


Mason's Other Great Grandmother
1000 ISO : f4 @ 1/125 'th


Mason's Aunt Roslyn (my daughter and the host of the party with her husband)
100 ISO : f3.7 @ 1/200 'th : pop up flash

Family and friends

100 ISO : f2.8 @ 1/160 'th


160 ISO : f7.1 @ 1/125 'th : pop up flash


100 ISO : f5 @ 1/80 'th : pop up flash

Almost bought one. The 7-14 is an awesome lens. (The 12-60 and 50-200 are both nice but the 7-14 was a show stopper.) So get one of those.

How about that viewfinder? Compared to the craptacular ones in the 5x0 and 4x0 it is insanely nice.

Nice shots your grandson's been taking there. Does he consciously know how to use fill, rather than the camera just doing it for him?

Another note on the E-3's durability: on my cameras, the first thing to suffer is the LCD... with the E-3 you can simply turn it around to face the body, no problem.

I'll be getting one once the next generation is out and the price drops.

Wasn't it 5 years between the E1 and the E3? You might have quite the wait.

No he doesn't know how to. He figured out to pop up the flash and got fill light that to him improved the images.

Thank you for the comments.

Personally I'd rather be shooting and building a library of images rather than waiting to buy a camera that I could make use of. But then you probably already have a camera so don't really need anything other than that right now. I'm sure everything will be a different scene in 4 to 5 years.




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I will point out that my feeling is that the technical part of being a creative photographer, is the least important part and with todays gear may be of little importance just as Mason shows me and also my youngest 25 year old son has proven with his abilities to take impressively inspiring images (many paid commissions) without having any ability or interest in learning anything other than how to turn the camera on and use the Auto settings. Of course I have 30 years of experience with exposure and lighting and focusing - a majority of those years using medium and large format manual cameras and studio lighting, although I made good use of any automation I had with my RZ67 AE prism finder and 35mm Olympus film cameras and Metz and Vivitar flashes - - - and since moving to AF cameras 7 or 8 years ago and then DSLR's, I depend almost 100% on the automation that camera companies have poured millions of dollars into refining - that requires nothing more that setting the button properly and shooting. My cameras do almost everything for me on every job - except deal with the subject, compose, determine the best light and direction, organize crop clean up and post process the images, print the images.

What to me is impressive with these images and many others over the years that Mason has taken - is the way he is able to get great responses out of people, his being in tight with very good composition in so many, and the way he confidently handles the cameras and like with video games figures out what camera buttons get him what he needs in a very short period of time without any instruction. But then again, those are characteristics that I look for in photography while with others technical quality and ability are paramount. On the other hand, every day I see a ton of images on photography forums and photographers websites - even pro ones - that show poor to terrible results - - - all while shooting in Manual for purity sake or because they have been told that that is essential to being a successful photographer.

I'm not going to post my people pictures here on a landscape forum - - - but this post on four thirds contains the first use of my E3 in a professional setting last Monday where I was being paid and where the pressure was on to perform:

http://www.fourthirds-user.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2124

This family have prepurchased a 30" shot for their wall - as have my family next week where we will be shooting the mom and dad and 20 and 25 year old children on a beach - - - - so my next anxiety will be getting those printed and seeing the Olympus results at those sizes, with my content (I have many successful 24x36 family lifestyle prints from my Nikon D70's and D200 so am not overly worried).

I'm aware that it's better to be shooting than waiting, and that it may be a bit of a wait, but I figure I can get at least another year's worth of life out of my E-330, as much as I abuse the poor thing. After that, a ~$300 E-410 should hold me over (not to mention that I want one anyways for the weaker AA filter and small size).

I agree with you totally. There is very little if any difference in image quality between my "lesser" E-510 and my new E3 - - - at least nothing that can be noticed in my prints. If I demanded nothing other than image quality for my professional work, or was primarily shooting static studio portrait images - I may not have purchased or be using the E-3. My far lighter weight and far cheaper E-510 does almost everything I want - and I still use it professionally alongside the E-3.

I'm sure that the E-410/E420 would also saitisfy me in the same way that my E-510 does - with the exception of Image Stabilization which I rely on being I don't setup and steady myself to the best of my ability before taking a shot. I previously owned an E-500 (got rid of it several years ago for a D200 when the E1 replacement did not materialize) and was totally impressed with the image quality and camera function and handling. I still might get an E-410 or E-420 for its ultracompact size, for my future travels.

Speaking about the E-300 - - - when I visited renowned portrait photographer Al Gilbert at his studio in Toronto a couple of years ago, his camera of choice for his portrait work was an Olympus E-300 and he went on for some time explaining to me the virtues of his choice. Of course the image enlargements on his wall taken with the camera, spoke for themself. All the best.

Thanks very much for the images and summary. Last month I purchased an E-510 two lens kit, but haven't had a great deal of time to use it. (Upcoming 1.5 weeks in the Maritimes (Canada) will change that though!) But from what I have seen so far, I am very happy with the light weight, small size, handling, responsiveness, sharpness, and overall image quality, but wondered about noise at high ISO. I am quite happy with the ISO 800s, which are far less grainy/noisy than ISO 400 35 mm film ever was. Nevertheless I am very impressed by your 3200 ISO shots, and am tempted to now push my E-510 at ISO 1600 at slow shutter speeds with IS, and Noise Ninja. Do you think the ISO 1600 with the E-510 can be made to look as good as your E-3 ISO 3200s?

I have successfully used my E-510 with 1600ISO settings and have provided salable shots. They probably are about the same as images taken with the E-3 at 3200ISO settings. Of course it is going to depend on the image content, proper exposure, and your expectations.

A whole series from a wedding this past winter that I shot with my Olympus E-510, required 1600ISO to be used with the poor lighting in a quaint dark cafe and for shots taken on the streets. All were show shutter speed, dark and contrasty settings, and using my lens wide open. Improving any one of these conditions would surely improve the results.

Nevertheless, many images from this series sold to the couple and family and were printed at 5x7 and 8x10 sizes. One popular 1600ISO sepia image that they liked from the streets, was printed at 10"x16" size for a spread across 2 pages of the wedding book. I did not use NR (Neat Image is the one I have) for the printing in this case and the results were perfect for my use. Controlled NR can certainly make a big improvement in reducing the grainy look at 1600ISO (E-510) and 3200ISO (E-3) though if that is the preference.

Fact is that I would not use 1600ISO with the E-510 or 3200ISO with the E3 (or a D300 for that matter) in normal scenarios. If the character of the setting or extreme lighting conditions allows for the high ISO use - I make use of it. But I think that developing a good knowledge of when and how to take advantage of such usage is essential to getting results that you will be pleased with.


This is one of the E-510 1600ISO shots without Noise Reduction and running it through Neat Image (with the E-510 profile). Note that I shoot with the cameras Noise Filter set to off for maximum detail - but also increased noise:

And here is a shot in Colour from the series:







Both of the images have subtle Noise Reduction applied. IF I cranked up the NR, I could end up with plastic shooth tonality if that were my choice.


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The E-3 at 3200ISO would have given me a little breathing room for shutter speed - - - or the E-3 at 1600ISO and the same exposure settings would have provided a superior image as far as noise goes.



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