Olympus E-XXX users: small viewfinder?

[emtp563]

I was in the local Circuit City the other day looking for a BlueTooth dongle.  I stopped by the camera section to see if anything caught my eye.  I was looking at a few Olympus E-Volt DSLR's they had on display to see what all the fuss was about here on these boards.  I looked through the viewfinder of these camera and was quite frankly surprised.  How do you guys compose an image while looking through such a small viewfinder?  How do you manually focus?  I for one would not be able to get good action shots while looking through that viewfinder.  The Sony a-XXX cameras were the same.

[RacingHistorian]

I have the magnifier eyepiece that they sell.  It helps 'some', but I've never really had a problem with it.   The smaller viewfinder is not an issue with the E-1 or E-3, and the new E-30 is just a tad smaller than the E-3.    I know people who actually manually shoot with OM lenses on E-3xx, E-4xx, and E-5xx series bodies.   I don't own any OM lenses so I've never tried it.   

Since you told us before that it is impossible to shoot sports and action with an Olympus,  I stopped shooting races so action shot composition isn't a problem.   

[emtp563]

Now when did I ever say anything was impossible?  What I said was "MOST" professional sports shooters use Nikon or Canon bodies, remember?  I'm assuming the E-XXX line is a "consumer" grade line, hence the small and almost useless viewfinder.  The Canon XXXD line is consumer grade also (350D, 400D, 450D, etc ie Rebel XT/XTi/XSi) and also shares the small/useless viewfinder.  From your post, it sounds like the E-XX series is similar to the Canon XXD series (pro-sumer grade), hence the larger viewfinder, but not as big as the pro-grade E-X or Canon XD (ie 1D/5D) series, right?

I used to have a Canon Rebel-series DSLR and I, for one, do not miss the small viewfinder.  The large viewfinder of my 40D and 1D make it easy for me to place a single focus-point right between someones eyes and track them with that single point as they're moving.  What I'm saying is IMPOSSIBLE is that I would not be able to do that with a small viewfinder.  Instead of putting words in my mouth, you can quote me on that.

[RacingHistorian]

What I said was "MOST" professional sports shooters use Nikon or Canon bodies, remember? 

Actually, to be exact you said: 

Any decent/professional sports shooter wouldn't even consider using anything other than Canon or Nikon bodies with Canon L/Nikkor lenses.

To answer the remainder of your post.

The E-4xx and E-5xx are consumer and 'enthusiast' dslrs.   The E-30 is as you described, the "pro-sumer" model.    The E-3 is the Olympus Pro body.   Yes, the larger viewfinder is most definitely a huge benefit.   That being said, I have no problem getting my focus point on the object in the area I want and panning with it.   But if I had the larger viewfinder, I'd definitely play with some of the awesome OM glass out there.   But I won't mess with it on my E-500 because it would be too difficult for me to manually focus.   

A friend of mine was visiting and he has the 5D Mark II.  AWESOME Camera, I want one!  That said, the AF is SLOW in comparison to an E-3.  The upside, the low light pictures are very, very nice.  HD video is sweet... but make sure you have the right lens or you get alot of bouncing going on when a noob like me shoots the video mode.  Oh, and have some large memory cards available. 

[emtp563]

I still didn't say it was impossible, did I?

Anyway, yes, the AF on the 5D Mark II is slow.  They're using the same AF system that was on the original 5D.  Why they didn't update the AF on the Mark II is anyone's guess.  The view through the 5D viewfinder is incredible.

The hubbub on the Canon boards is that the Mark II suffers from "black spots" in the images.  I don't know what that's all about but hopefully a firmware revision can straighten it out.  As for the video mode, HD video through an L lens with IS would be pretty sweet indeed.

Next year I'm going to see if I can get an original 5D cheap and a 1D Mark IIn.  I kind of like to stay a generation behind, especially with Canon's crappy track record as of late.

[Nick D]

This is  dpreview's quote about the E3 viewfinder in their review of the E3:

" Viewfinder

One of the big differences between the E-3 and just about every other Four-Thirds SLR ever made is that Olympus has put a huge amount of effort into producing a viewfinder that doesn't suffer from the 'looking down a tunnel' problem arising from the smaller sensor format. And to its credit the result is very impressive; with a true 100% field of view and 1.15x magnification it's as good as most APS sensor cameras, and a good deal better than many. There is an eyepiece shutter (for ensuring accurate metering in live view mode) and a dioptre adjustment dial just to the right of the eyepiece.

Comparing the E-3's viewfinder directly to the Nikon D300 and the Canon EOS 40D it's obvious that Olympus has done a superb job of overcoming the limitations imposed by the smaller format - it's easily as big and as bright (in fact the 4:3 format means it's actually slightly larger)."

the smaller bodies suffer with the smaller view finder.