Olympus E400(smallest dSLR) launches in Europe w/UW housing already anounced.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Basic rundown.

Its small and light.
10mp
Dustbuster
5 frame RAW buffer @ 3fps

I'm guessing basically a slightly faster E500 packed into a tiny package with a new 10mp sensor.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06091401olympuse400.asp

An idea on how small.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/Olympus/e400-06.jpg

And the UW housing on the Olympus UK site.

http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/dslr_PT-E03.htm

Seems like a great camera for those who'd like to be a bit less intrusive than with the more traditional, bulkier dSLRs. Great for street photographers. As for divers, I would think this tiny little package would probably house into a smaller package than other dSLRs while providing the same image quality and flexibility. If only it had the LiveView.

 

[Fouremco]

Too bad that it won't be available in North America...

 

[slowhands]

Although I am less and less a fan of Olympus, this camera looks like a winner, perhaps comparable to the OM-1 in its relative compactness and consumer appeal. If they release it in Europe it will be available via grey market and eBay channels, no worries. Since Olympus America's warranty support has been deficient, not having US warranty support is a minor problem. I'd get a back up Mack warranty if possible.

But I would be very wary of their underwater housing, until I see some supportive reviews. We all have heard about the port latch problems with the PT series of housings, but this does look more like the Ikelite style of latch with a positive locking mechanism. My initial inclination would be to trust Ikelite for a housing before risking a valuable SLR and lenses on an Olympus housing. I do own both Olympus and Ikelite housings, so I have first hand knowledge of the pros and cons.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I agree, the new camera does scream OM throwback, now if Olympus would release some small, fast, digital primes for it

All of Olympus's dSLR housings are pretty obviously in an entirely different class than the cheaper PnS housings, and priced that way as well.

I've had a bad experience with Olympus dealing with a flooding that they could not reproduce in their testing - so I had to foot the bill. I still read about 90% positive reviews of their customer support. Nobody has 100%, and you have to expect to foot the bill on UW housings that cannot be proven to be defective. This is hardly what this thread is about though...

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

For those that really want to prioritize noise and megapixels, this seems to be the best Olympus has to offer so far.

http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/olympus-e-400,1_2798

E400 full size shot at ISO1600
http://images.quesabesde.com/camaras_digitales/noticias/olympus_e400_e400-1600iso.jpg

E500 full size shot at ISO1600
http://images.quesabesde.com/camaras_digitales/noticias/olympus_e400_e500-1600iso.jpg

The E400 seems to be a step up. More pixels, more detail, and less noise, the pixel peepers should be happy. Now we just have to wait for the improved US version(E440?) to come out, supposedly at PMA in February.

 

[alcina]

Thanks for the links and info. I have added this thread to the Pink Link.

 

[kapula]

It seems they haven't fixed the hot pixel problem that my c-8080 has. Check out for example those 100 and 1600 iso pictures. Click them to full size (not resized as my firefox likes to show them). Check the reflections on a plate in it's top right corner. There are two white lines (reflections from black/white pot). Between those lines you can see a hot red pixel (actually more or less 4 pixels) in 100 iso pic and hot white in 1600 iso pic. At least my camera has those darn pixels only if I use shutter speed slower than a second.

If you have an olympus camera you can check your ccd by taking a pic with lens cap on with minimum shutter speed. If you get white pixels you have the "normal" oly quality ccd. If not you are one of the few lucky winners. If you contact oly on this matter they advice you to do a pixel remapping (if I recall correctly) and that doesn't do jack

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Hot pixels during a long exposure will occur on any camera, whether using the Kodak CCD Oly has used in past dSLRs are whatever other brand. Thats why the nifty little black frame subtraction features came into play.

Actually, the pixel mapping feature works quite well and I wouldn't be suprised if those hot pixels bit the dust after the feature was run.

Great feature to have in camera, beats the hell out of sending the camera out for repair for a few pixels.

 

[kapula]

Good that pixel mapping works in some cases. With my camera it's no use. My two brothers both have c-8080 and haven't found any help from pixel mapping. This could be a c-8080 feature though. Dust cleaning system sounds pretty good but pixel mapping.. I still have my doupts

But hey that's just me and my 5 cents.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

http://www.shadow.janikit.co.uk/e400.htm

Site above has 100%, non processed crops, from D80, 400D(KissX/RebelXTi), E400, and 5D.