Saturday, June 13, 2009

Olympus E-620 review


Olympus E-620 review

The Olympus E-620 is a 12.3 Megapixel DSLR with built-in anti-shake facilities and Live View enhanced by a fully-articulated 2.7in screen. Announced in February 2009, it’s positioned between the entry-level E-4xx series and the higher-end E-30, and while Olympus continues to sell the E-520 at the time of writing, we expect the E-620 to replace it over time.

As such, the E-620 represents a step-up from budget entry-level models for those who want a more sophisticated camera without having to invest in an upper mid-range or semi-pro body.

The E-620 inherits a number of key aspects from the higher-end E-30 including the same 12.3 Megapixel Live MOS sensor, six creative ‘art-filters’ and the articulated 2.7in / 230k monitor, allowing you to easily compose at any angle in Live View – although the screen panel itself is a newer version.

These are also the headline improvements over the earlier 10 Megapixel E-520, although the new E-620 additionally addresses several complaints of its ‘predecessor’ by featuring a more sophisticated phase-change AF system (7-point vs 3-point) and a slightly larger viewfinder (0.96x vs 0.92x); continuous shooting is also a little quicker (4fps vs 3.5fps). The E-620 is also a little smaller than the E-520 without sacrificing too much of a grip, making it the smallest DSLR with built-in Image Stabilisation. It's even more impressive when you consider there's also a fully articulated screen in there.

It’s another compelling DSLR specification although one that approaches the price of two key rivals: Canon's EOS 500D / Rebel T1i and the Nikon D5000. In our Olympus E-620 review we’ll compare all three models closely, starting with their physical differences and ending with how their respective image quality measures-up. So if you’re considering one of these three DSLRs or are simply after a step-up from a budget, entry-level model, you’ve come to the right place.

Testing notes:

We tested a final production Olympus E-620 running firmware version 1.0 and 1.3 in its body and kit lens respectively. Following our convention of testing cameras using their factory default settings unless otherwise stated, the E-620 was set to Large Fine JPEG quality, Auto White Balance, ESP metering and the Natural Picture Mode with Normal Gradation; Noise Reduction and the Noise Filter were set to their ON and STD settings respectively. In-camera Image Stabilisation was enabled for all handheld shots and disabled for tripod-based tests.

2 comments:

  1. Nice review. I've had an E-620 for about a month, and with each photo I'm finding more to like about it.

    r4i

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  2. POS in my opinion. It is a firmware update of the 420. Oly just uses software and new body molds to launch cameras. They hobble their flagship offerings and stuff miss match stuff in plastic molded body's and call it a new camera. The e-5 took 3.5 years to change the software of the e-3 and launch it. I hate Olympus they are greedy Aholes

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