Olympus is one of the unsung heroes in most of the markets in the world because of their marketing strategy or what ever the reason is.
A sort history before I start, this is my second D-SLR and first one was Sony Alpha 200. And with experience of 1 year DSLR photography with my Sony, I could able to find out my expectations, and they are
My type of photography would be mostly travel photography > landscape > portrait > wildlife, macro and others
weight advantage
options for better lenses than kit lenses
money matters
latest technologies
beyond these expectations there is my passion towards technology as well as photography. So before I went to buy a new d-slr, I started reading about the brands, their ideas and stories. The main thing that turned me towards Olympus was, their passion for innovation; when all (other leading brands) were in street war to increase the sale and came up with ideas just by modifying existing technology, Olympus(with a small group of other companies) showed the courage to come up with totally new ideas based on the imagination of an ideal camera & lenses as well as keeping photographers in mind - they gave birth of four third technology. Along with the image capturing technologies they introduced a small but sufficient range of quality lenses which are made by experts in the field of optics. Beyond this, my other expectations were also fulfilled by the camera - Olympus E620 that I am using now,
Though entry level camera, it is capable to handle complex situations in the sense of easy configuration and usability
This is the most(one of) lightweight camera weighing around 475g, as well as lenses are lightweight
quite a number of pro lenses available
average/competitive pricing - low in many cases
latest or not, totally different and quite innovative technologies used - four-third sensor, SWD for AF, Supersonic Wave Filter for dust protection, sensor shift IS(similar tech may be used in Sony also) for in-body image stabilization etc
Apart from these, other things that one would like:
Easiest menu navigation and configuration without going into the menu options, its known as super-menu
Option to play around with Contrast, Sharpness, Saturation, RBG curve directly without going to Menu options
even though two different types, you can use two memory cards(one CF and other is XD) and can switch between on the fly
all direction Tiltable LCD screen
dedicated keys for most of the key feature - WB, ISO, Image Stabilization, Exposer lock, live view etc
5x/7x/10x magnification is useful in Live view mode for manual focusing
pop-art filters which are candid to use
Image stabilizer can be switched on only for one direction also, like only for horizontal movement or only for vertical - which helps in creating nice panning effect(I haven’t tried this feature though).
Supports mirror-lockup
Some of the positives or negatives
only 7 AF area and 5 are cross-type AF sensor
It gives guidance frame for panorama, but it works only on XD card
Some pro level configuration option like auto focus adjustment for each lens that is registered with the camera, but most of us do not bother about those settings
lens firmware can be upgraded for better performance but only if company provides an update
Some negative points as pointed out by different forums or I think they are negative
due to reduced sized sensor, noise are more. but in most of the cases there is workaround to reduce noise. four-thirds have crop factor of 2.
availability of camera, lenses or accessories in India are not at all widespread.
Rest of the features are mostly comparable with other brand’s entry level models.