Scott Brady
Founder
Well, after two years of hard use and abuse on the Olympus gear, we are shifting back to Canon. There are a few reasons for this, but primary of which is the shocking and disappointing release of the E5. Their flagship camera came to market at 12 mp and with only 720 HDV. That essentially made the E5 about as exciting and relevant for an upgrade as the iPad 2 - or a vacuum cleaner.
However, I do have praise for the E3. It has been the most durable and reliable camera we have ever used. We were purposefully negligent of it, especially towards the end. How much abuse will this thing take? On my last trip to Iceland I kept shooting in a complete downpour, rain running over the camera for at least 5 minutes. It did protest, although only slightly and momentarily as the shutter release would result in 2-3 frames going off in succession. I blew on the button and then it was right again. This camera was also quite compact given its near Land Cruiser build quality, benefiting from the 4/3 sensor size and related lenses. This was especially true at the longer focal lengths.
The Olympus captures some wonderful images and I thank it for that.
All told, the shutter released 22,877 times.
While I do have great praise for the durability of the E3 and the quality of the 12-60mm 2.8, 50mm 2.0 and 70-200mm 2.8 lenses, this camera had some significant faults and now in 2011 is nearly completely eclipsed in performance by cameras costing a fraction of the price. Noise at high ISO was always unacceptable, with anything over 640 being unusable in print. That was my biggest complaint. And although 10mp is quite usable, there is so much advantage that comes with 18-22mp images, principally on the cropping side. I needed to alway be so cautious with composition, filling as much of the frame with the intended subject to ensure good sharpness and pixel density. That also resulted in some blown shots, the bumper slightly out of frame, etc.
So I have looked long and hard at what to replace the Olympus with. The Panasonic Lumix GH2 got my attention and I even considered some of the Nikon units. In the end, Canon just does a better job with lenses and HDV (today), and so many of the people I travel with shoot those cameras - nearly all of them actually.
I am giving up some compactness and gaining a whole lotta performance. Given my day job, probably worth the trade.
My new kit will be:
5D MKII
16-35 2.8L
24-70 2.8L
70-200 2.8L IS
60D with 18-135mm IS kit lens (moto and back-up camera)
Maybe for Christmas:
14mm 2.8L
However, I do have praise for the E3. It has been the most durable and reliable camera we have ever used. We were purposefully negligent of it, especially towards the end. How much abuse will this thing take? On my last trip to Iceland I kept shooting in a complete downpour, rain running over the camera for at least 5 minutes. It did protest, although only slightly and momentarily as the shutter release would result in 2-3 frames going off in succession. I blew on the button and then it was right again. This camera was also quite compact given its near Land Cruiser build quality, benefiting from the 4/3 sensor size and related lenses. This was especially true at the longer focal lengths.
The Olympus captures some wonderful images and I thank it for that.
All told, the shutter released 22,877 times.
While I do have great praise for the durability of the E3 and the quality of the 12-60mm 2.8, 50mm 2.0 and 70-200mm 2.8 lenses, this camera had some significant faults and now in 2011 is nearly completely eclipsed in performance by cameras costing a fraction of the price. Noise at high ISO was always unacceptable, with anything over 640 being unusable in print. That was my biggest complaint. And although 10mp is quite usable, there is so much advantage that comes with 18-22mp images, principally on the cropping side. I needed to alway be so cautious with composition, filling as much of the frame with the intended subject to ensure good sharpness and pixel density. That also resulted in some blown shots, the bumper slightly out of frame, etc.
So I have looked long and hard at what to replace the Olympus with. The Panasonic Lumix GH2 got my attention and I even considered some of the Nikon units. In the end, Canon just does a better job with lenses and HDV (today), and so many of the people I travel with shoot those cameras - nearly all of them actually.
I am giving up some compactness and gaining a whole lotta performance. Given my day job, probably worth the trade.
My new kit will be:
5D MKII
16-35 2.8L
24-70 2.8L
70-200 2.8L IS
60D with 18-135mm IS kit lens (moto and back-up camera)
Maybe for Christmas:
14mm 2.8L
