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| Olympus PEN E-P3 now has a built-in flash, but still no viewfinder. |
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the latest addition to the Olympus PEN lineup…
Well, at least they’re halfway there. The new E-P3 includes a built-in flash, but they still forgot the viewfinder. They caved to the pressure of adding a touch screen to the interface, but seem to have keep the functionality afforded by dedicated buttons.
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| Dedicated controls remain despite the addition of touch-screen operation. |
Let’s hope the next version has a built-in, high resolution electronic viewfinder as well. If it doesn’t, the PEN line will begin to fall behind.
Consider this; the new Sony Alpha NEX-7 has a built in viewfinder and a built-in hires EVF, and it’s almost identical in size to the E-P3. But, the Olympus has a smaller sensor with half the resolution. That doesn’t necessarily mean the image quality will be inferior to the Sony, but we’ll have to see the differences side-by-side before a final judgement can be made. One thing is for certain though; the NEX-7’s APS-C sized sensor will offer greater compatibility with a wider range of legacy lenses that the MFT with its 2x crop factor. A 24mm lens on the NEX-7 would give you a nice 36mm wide angle. On the E-P3, it’s merely normal at 48mm. It would be hard to get really wide on the E-P3, but not so hard on the NEX-7.
It’s ironic that Sony is beating camera companies at their own game. Turnabout is fair play; after all, Sony pioneered the Walkman, and Apple stole their thunder with the iPod.
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