Olympus Steals Photo Show

Sorry I haven't written anything for a few days, but I have been plagued with a nasty cold that only now is starting to get better...and I had a couple of photo jobs that took up whatever healthy time I could manage to scrape together.

And speaking of photography, here is some info that came out of this year's Photo Marketing Association (PMA) annual show in Las Vegas which recently wrapped up a four day run. The PMA show is probably the most important photographic show of them all as it is where the new year's hottest digital cameras and related products are announced.

And this year was no exception as their were 110 new cameras announced at or just before the show. But, according to some of the articles I read, there was little to get excited about. For the most part the products announced where minor upgrades or restyled versions of last year’s cameras...with a couple of notable exceptions.

Sony almost succeeded in stealing the show with the rather vague announcement of some new models coming in the future...including one model that will take pictures at night with almost no available light necessary. Another of their new models will feature a high definition connection that will connect the camera directly to an HDTV and yield HD-quality results.

But, for the here and now, Olympus may have stolen the show with two new digital Single Lens Reflex cameras, the E-510 and the E-410. The 510 features built-in image stabilization in the camera's body . This is the first DSLR camera to do it since the now defunct Konica-Minolta first did it a couple of years ago.

Canon and Nikon both have versions of image stabilization in some of their lenses, which work very well, as I personally can attest to. But the new 510 has it built in to the body, which makes it much better and useful in all situations. With image stabilization, you can hand-hold the camera at much slower shutter speeds without having camera-shake show up in the pictures.

Both the 510 and the 410 have a feature called Live Preview. Olympus is the first DSLR company to offer viewing not only thru-the-lens, but also on a large screen on the back of the camera. And with these models, you can actually zoom in on the scene (without using the lens) to make sure everything is in focus.

There are also 18 different easy-to-use special scene programs for photographing in unusual places like snow, sunsets, night photography, and others. They also feature a black and white mode that adds built-in digital red, green, and blue filters, a must for anyone that shoots black and white. There are a host of other features that have appeared on Olympus cameras before, including dust-free sensors. The 410 model only differs from the 510 because it does not have image stabilization.

I still use my Olympus E-300 camera and can tell you from experience that Olympus puts out and excellent product. I also think their Zuiko lenses are excellent. So, if you are thinking of moving into SRL photography, you definitely should think about this new E-510.