I broke down and bought the E-420 last night. So far, it’s a sweet little camera. Everything is smaller on it, almost 3/4 scale. The 14-42mm looks like it’s about the size of a standard 50mm. Remember in the 60s and 70s when Olympus was making those small SLRs like the OM series and Pen cameras? I like that they’re going back to that. I haven’t had a chance to play with it that much but here are a few observations:
- The kit lens is not silent like a Wave/USM/HSM motor, but it has the mechanism where the focus ring does not move when focusing, not like the Canon or Nikon 18-55mm lenses. Turns out the manual focus ring is not a mechanical one but electronic. While it turns, it sends a signal to tell the camera to start adjusting focus kind of like a point and shoot.
- The three position autofocus points seems kind of not that useful (I hate when people say “useless.” Is it really?) because they are so close together. You have to use the menu to switch positions.
- The viewfinder eyehole sticks out kind of far for my taste. This is actually driving me nuts right now.
- Does not use standard mini-USB.
I’ve wanted this camera for a while. I’m not sure why I haven’t posted about it earlier. Maybe because I thought I already have. I hate when I do that. My interest was resparked when I found it on sale at Circuit City. Of course this one does not have the 25mm pancake. Anyways, who wouldn’t want a small camera that creates quality images? I considered a Sigma DP1, but it just has too many flaws. I love the Foveon sensor, but the speed of the lens, focusing, and operations apparently is way too slow. The Olympus E-420 is not quite as small or light as a DP1, but it is still considerably smaller and 25% lighter than my current Nikon D80.
I set up my Super T-Amp this weekend. It was attached to my PowerMac via a really old Onkyo USB DAC. The speakers of choice for this setup were the $40 a pair Polk Audio R15s. I marveled at the sound and my cheapness. By the way, I plugged my Super T-Amp into my Kill-A-Watt. It measured 2 watts while playing music…loud. In off position, it measured 1 watt.
I’ve been wanting a replacement Class-D amp like the Pop-Pulse T40i for a while now. In my research I discovered a company I’ve never heard of, Nuforce. They make high end hi-fi gear. We’re talking about $5,000 for a pair of mono-amps. They also make this $250 desktop amp I now want, the Nuforce Icon, bringing high-end sound to the masses.
It is so great for so many reasons.
- Only $250. Or $200 for the special introductory offer.
- Built-in USB DAC.
- Built-in headphone amp.
- A true integrated amplifier. You can switch between 3 different sources: USB, RCA, and 1/8″ mini.
- Can be used as a preamplifier.
- Can be used to biamp if you have two.
- Looks cool. Reminds me of the Naim NAIT 3 I always wanted.
- Some great reviews already. Check this one out at 6moons in particular.
- It uses Cat-5 cables as speaker cable. Weird.
- SPDIF would have been nice.
