Olympus E-3

Excellent image quality, good ergonomics and build, menu system, comprehensive feature set and customisability, super control panel, top plate display, responsive, good dust reduction system, great weather sealing

Fastest focus rate only available with Olympus’ Super Sonic Wave drive lenses, bulky for its class but particularly for a FourThirds Format camera! Cramped top plate buttons, not much headroom in RAW files, complex menus

Olympus’ new flagship DSLR replaces the now very long in the tooth E-1 and bridges that gap for Olympus aficionados between enthusiast and professional shooting. It’s big, heavy, and very capable but not without its flaws

Solidly built, weatherproof, excellent picture quality, Live View with articulating LCD screen

JPEG images a bit noisy above ISO 800 ; requires expensive Supersonic Wave Drive lenses for maximum focusing speed

Great set of features ; Very high image quality ; Good value for money

Controls take a bit of getting used to

Fast focus, live view, dust reduction, great build, good images

Pictures are a little soft in some situations at high magnification, some competing models offer faster burst mode

E-3 is a great SLR and Olympus's best model to date. While it may not usurp the dominant forces of Canon and Nikon in this space, its combination of great features and good quality pictures make it a viable alternative for people after something a...

Great image quality ; Enthusiast-level shooting features ; Solid build quality and stylish design

Zoom ring a bit hard to reach ; AWB can be fooled under artificial light ; Very expensive

The EP-3 builds considerably on the strengths of its predecessors. As such, it’s a generously featured enthusiast-level camera that offers a good degree of user customisation while remaining easy enough for the novice user to get to grips with too....

What the Olympus E3 brings to the table is excellent images, a great build quality, and a lovely user experience, but fails to match the innovation of the E-1, or even other models from the Olympus range. Instead it's taken the best bits, refined them...

Rotating, swiveling LCD with live view ; Very quick autofocusing

Very heavy

This big, heavy, rugged camera has extensive advanced controls, fast burst-shooting speed, and can autofocus very quickly.

The comfiest eyepiece. One-touch menu access to nearly 20 functions. The quickest focusing. Articulating LCD makes Live View a real asset, instead of an afterthought

The back of the camera is a jumble. The 2.5-inch LCD is smallish compared with competitors. Employs Olympus's XD memory card format, instead of SD, as the second memory card slot. Presently only two super-fast focusing lenses in the quiver

To be picky, the Olympus E-3's auto white-balance performance is variable, something the manual itself acknowledges. Still, there are sufficient manual settings to correct it, and since this isn't a camera for the point-and-shoot brigade, those who...

Excellent pictures ; Easily mastered control system ; Strong implementation of live view ; Powerful burst mode

Resolution isn't as high as rivals ; Quirky flash controls ; Screen feels small

It took a lot to shake the nagging feeling that the delayed E-3 has already been left behind by other cameras like the Nikon D300 or Sony Alpha DSLR-A700 with their bigger screens and 12 megapixels, but in terms of usability and picture quality the E-3...