Taken from a very cool camera – the Olympus E-420! 2000 Kelvin.

On the other end is 12000 Kelvin.

Yep, the Olympus E-420 is out! Unfortunately, they didn’t have the Olympus Zuiko Digital 25mm F2.8 pancake lens I was so looking forward to, here. I love pancakes when can I have one?

Kelvin WB in Live View. You have to hold down the EV button while rolling the dial though. The Sony A300/A350 puts their WB on the left of the screen so you get a clear view of the scene, while the Nikon D300/D3 puts it at the bottom if I remember correctly. Either way, it’s great to be able to set Kelvin WB in Live View.

The Live View Imager AF mode is AWESOME!

I used the camera exclusively in Live View, because Imager AF was pretty alright for a contrast-detect AF system! This was a lot faster than the trodding, misfocusing tripod-mode Nikon D300, or the slightly faster Canon EOS 450D. It felt like an old, slow point-and-shoot… but this was still ages beyond the D300 or 450D.

The lens used was the Olympus Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6, a compact little wonder.

I didn’t even have time to check if the optical viewfinder showed all the settings inside, which Olympus has never failed to do, and I salute them for that.

Of course, the tilting-mirror system that is in the Sony A300/A350 gives phase-detect AF which is still the fastest AF in Live View, but this comes pretty close! I can only imagine if a 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD was mounted on this…

Of course, there was a downside – the mirror had to go down before going up to release the shutter. ARGH! When I pressed the shutter in Live View, the screen darkened while freezing the image (which said 0:00:09.00). By the time the mirror went down and came up, the image recorded 0:00:10.07. 1.07 second shutter lag.

When I shot it, it said 0:00:34 ST 05. It recorded at 0:00:35.32. A variable shutter lag?

If not for this shutter lag in Live View, which was a bit too long, I’d already be dreaming about this camera all night. The E-420 with 25mm F2.8 pancake is something that would be appreciated very much by casual shooters who want a little pocketable buddy. Get a waist pouch and a FL-36R and you’re set for anything. And maybe a grappling hook, should foot zoom only get you so far.