Olympus E-620 opinions??

Originally Posted by LeeR

I don't have the 620 but I do have some Olympus equipment and I know it is high quality and a good bang for the buck. However, if I had it to do over, I would not have any of my hard earned dollars in Olympus. Recently Olympus has indicated they are going to move away from the professional cameras and concentrate on the EVIL line.(see the article here.) No one can blame them for choosing an avenue where they have the potential to not only do well, but also dominate; certainly they have no chance of overtaking the big two in the foreseeable future. That would indicate to me, that as good as this camera may be, and as good a deal as you may be getting, you may support for your camera dwindling in the future.

Well, a few things here.. number one being that Olympus corporate fully dis-avowed the gentleman's statements as personal speculation. BUT, Olympus has made clear that the concentration is on mirror-less. They have also stated that until m4/3 can fully support 4/3 lenses (ie... auto-focus), there will be 4/3 cameras to support those lenses. From there.. it depends on your definition of support. While Canon and Nikon will no longer support or repair many earlier lenses or bodies, you can still call Olympus to support it's E-1's and ALL 4/3 lenses. And they will repair those bodies and lenses as well.

Now, maybe in a few years I will have to make a different decision where it comes to further upgrades in my business... but I am not a gear chaser, so long as my system works and makes me money, I have no reason to succumb to the gloom and doom that many Oly gear collectors do. (And, they will allow me to add to my collection cheaply as they all run toward the fire exits!)

[mikerob2334]

Originally Posted by LeeR

I don't have the 620 but I do have some Olympus equipment and I know it is high quality and a good bang for the buck. However, if I had it to do over, I would not have any of my hard earned dollars in Olympus. Recently Olympus has indicated they are going to move away from the professional cameras and concentrate on the EVIL line.(see the article here.) No one can blame them for choosing an avenue where they have the potential to not only do well, but also dominate; certainly they have no chance of overtaking the big two in the foreseeable future. That would indicate to me, that as good as this camera may be, and as good a deal as you may be getting, you may support for your camera dwindling in the future.

I can live with that if it happens. I don't plan on sticking with Olympus for very long. When it comes to technology, I tend to upgrade to the latest and greatest as often as possible. I plan on going with Canon for future equipment purchases. But for a first dSLR I couldn't pass up a good trade. I had already planned on getting the ipad 2, so trading my old one for this camera worked out perfect.

@xinman: I have an issue you may be able to answer. I am trying to set up exposure bracketing to do some hdr. But from what I have read and tried on camera, you have to actually trip the shutter for each shot. Is there no way to set the camera to take 3 bracketed shots on its own. If not, it looks like a remote trigger is in order to prevent any movement (however slight) between exposures?....and I know someone might correct me, but shouldn't I actually be able to accomplish the same thing with one RAW file? I've never dealt with RAW so there's going to be a lot of learning going on now!

[xinman]

Originally Posted by mikerob2334

I can live with that if it happens. I don't plan on sticking with Olympus for very long. When it comes to technology, I tend to upgrade to the latest and greatest as often as possible. I plan on going with Canon for future equipment purchases. But for a first dSLR I couldn't pass up a good trade. I had already planned on getting the ipad 2, so trading my old one for this camera worked out perfect.

@xinman: I have an issue you may be able to answer. I am trying to set up exposure bracketing to do some hdr. But from what I have read and tried on camera, you have to actually trip the shutter for each shot. Is there no way to set the camera to take 3 bracketed shots on its own. If not, it looks like a remote trigger is in order to prevent any movement (however slight) between exposures?....and I know someone might correct me, but shouldn't I actually be able to accomplish the same thing with one RAW file? I've never dealt with RAW so there's going to be a lot of learning going on now!

You do in fact have to trip the shutter for each individual bracketted exposure, that's one reason I have done many shots like that. Although I just order me a new tripod so that will help in that area for me. You can actually do it using raw which is how I do most of mine at this point. You can see some of my work here Tone Mapped - a set on Flickr

Here are a couple of my recent shots using one RAW.





As for LeeR's comments I'm not super worried about this deal for now. I seriously doubt I will drop much more money on Olympus stuff for the time being. I do really like Olympus products but I need to know they will continue to support their customers. I have no intentions of ever going to an EVIL camera so I will not be happy if they stop making 4/3 bodies. If they would get out and advertise they could have a bigger chunk of the market, their products are nice. I always keep an eye on canon just in case.

DMIZE

[velvet4269]

I'm likely going to keep my e500 until my Sigma macro lens stops working, and then decide what I want to do; at almost $500 for the lens alone, and a tight budget to begin with, it's going to take a lot of serious thinking (and saving).