The Olympus E-1: what it meant to me

If I were to talk to a non-camera buff today about  how  I ‘upgraded’ from the entry level E-520 to the very origin of the Four Thirds system that came 5 YEARS before it, it would make for one hell of a conversation. Let’s count the ways:

       -Going from 10MP to 5MP (yes, that’s HALF of what I used to enjoy)

       -No pop-up flash (let alone one that allows me to remotely trigger external flashes)

      -No Live View (even as a DSLR user, I swear by Live View as in some cases, it helps me to compose and use manual focusing more effectively)

     -Going from a modern Panasonic Live MOS sensor to an ancient Kodak CCD chip that makes your pics look like the insides of a pepper mill if you go anywhere past ISO200

It does go on and on, but these are the so-called major disadvantages I faced by moving the E-1. Well, obviously we all do something bizarre for a reason, so here’s why. The E-1 to me, is a camera that is so pure, it basically takes everything that don’t really matter about photography, scrunches it up and throws it out the window. It had no fancy menus like different levels of noise reduction and 1/3 stop ISO levels. If anything, almost every option was just a choice of YES or NO, and the ISO values were all in 1 stop measurements. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because the simpler a device is, the more time you have to actually enjoy it for it’s intended purpose. With the E-1, you just turn it on and start shooting without having the ‘luxury’ of fine tweaking this or that parameter, unlike a modern DSLR.

Because the E-1 was designed form the ground up as a professional system, it sported some of the best things that make the overall package just more enjoyable. It had one of the toughest bodies sculpted from magnesium alloy, made it weatherproof (!) and was so well designed, it was widely acknowledged as one the best cameras in terms of ergonomics. Pleasantly enough, even as the 1^st of the series, it had a bright 100% optical viewfinder (though I must say it’s not as incredible as the ones from the newer  Canon or Nikon prosumers like the 7D or D300s). Compared to the pitiful excuse of an OVF on my E-520, however, it’s a real treat for the eyes. The mirror clap of the E-1 was also really soft, and I really appreciate that since it’s not as distracting as contemporary DSLRs (like the obnoxiously loud Sony Alpha 200, which sounds like hitting two wooden planks together).

What I truly love about the E-1, however, is that it produces the best low-ISO image quality of any DSLR I’ve ever tried. With the old Kodak CCD, the color is noticeably more vibrant and crisp, and it has a certain ‘soulful’ feel to it. Reds and blues are saturated but not overdone. This is probably where people have coined the term, Olympus Blue. While I think that a lot of DSLRs these days are capable of producing accurate blues, the Olympus rendition is a little bit better and more pleasing. The dynamic range of the sensor is also pretty good, considering that the photosites are larger than a 10MP one, since it has only 5MP to squeeze in the same area.

 I’m not going to kid myself by saying that the E-1 is perfect.  While the color rendition is really excellent, it’s also marred by bad noise performance anything up from ISO200. I regularly shoot at ISO400, which is one stop above the limit that most people think the E-1 is capable of, since I can accept the noise pattern and reduce it a little via post processing. What this means, however, is that you won’t really get noise free images unless you shoot at ISO100 or 200. No big deal, since this is pretty much what you can expect from a 7 year old DSLR.  The Kodak sensor is notorious for bad shadow noise and being a hot pixel machine if you shoot at slower shutter speeds. I’ve gotten many images that have hot pixels even at ½ second in low light. A great annoyance to say the least. The E-1 was also known to have a rather thick anti-aliasing filter to reduce the moiré and inadvertently reduce the overall sharpness, but if you’re a RAW shooter like me, you can conservatively adjust the sharpness to acceptable levels after shooting.

All in all, I still think that the E-1 is the finest and most engaging DSLR I’ve used (so far).  Sure, it doesn’t have built in stabilization or Live View like it’s successors, but in exchange, you get a really tough and weatherproof body, a 100% OVF and most of all, a sensor that renders color and dynamic range unlike what you get with modern Olympus cameras, giving it a pseudo film-like look to the images. It doesn’t have much that will get in your way of the entire experience, allowing you to just pick it up and start shooting. I do wish that Olympus would go back to it’s roots and create something in the spirit of the E-1. Maybe they can start off by talking with Kodak about producing sensors for them again. But for now, I just hope that my E-1 will last as long as possible. Maybe get myself another one as a backup once finances are a bit better.