Olympus
E410 Review
They
don't come any smaller or lighter than the Olympus E410! It's a
virtually pocket sized Digital SLR camera. But can this tiny Olympus
model really compete with its bigger 'full fat' rivals? Here's what we
thought of Olympus' new model.
In almost every physical
respect, this tiny Digital SLR camera is
identical to the Olympus E400, launched
barely six months before.
It's both still supremely
small and light, and it noticeably lacks the bulge of a battery grip
that appears to be a standard fixture on all current digital
SLRs.
This slim line appearance
makes it feel much more like a traditional compact SLR camera model.
As well as its good looks,
the Olympus E410 has an excellent LCD interface.
This doesn't just show the current settings, it also enables you to
select and adjust them directly with ease.
Inside the camera, though,
some major changes have taken place. The biggest is the incorporation
of a Live View mode, where you can choose to compose
pictures using the LCD rather than in the viewfinder. Olympus pioneered
Live View in the complex and ugly E330, which had a secondary 'viewing'
sensor within the camera. The E410 dispenses with this. It simply flips
the mirror up, opens the shutter and feeds the image from the sensor to
the LCD.
Olympus was first to
introduce an anti-dust system, and the E 410's 'Supersonic
Wave Filter' vibrates the sensor to shake dust off each
time the camera is started up.
We were pleased to see that
none of our test shots showed any visible signs of dust or
debris.
The Olympus E410 also
boasts a new image-processing engine. We previously noted that the E400
didn't have the 'bite' of other 10MP D-SLRs, but the Olympus E410 seems
to be a significant step in this area.
There's no clear difference
in image sharpness between this model and the Canon EOS 400D. At low ISOs
there's no noise effect, as you'd expect, and at high ISO quality holds
up well too. The E410's color rendition, contrast and saturation are
excellent.
The camera's exposure
system helps, combining great accuracy
with a high degree of control. It doesn't
fall into the trap of overexposing heavily back lit subjects, nor does
it produce dull and gloomy colors in bright, high-contrast conditions.
Some people may find the
E410 a little small in the hand but that didn't stop the classic
OM series from becoming one of the most favored tools of
travel photographers.
Others may be unsure about
committing to the
'Four Thirds' sensor that's been championed by Olympus as other
manufacturers use rather larger sensors in their digital SLRs.
However,
if you can get over those two points then you'll be rewarded with a
really great camera that produces consistently excellent results.

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