“Wow, it’s really small!” exclaimed Marianne.

She held the new Olympus E-620 camera body in her hands for the first time, examining it alongside the E-510 she was about to retire. And then she placed both cameras side by side just to check it out.

“Hmm…the grip is smaller though…”

That’s the thing with the E-620. With a body design somewhat a crossbreed of the E-420 and having certain cues borrowed from the E-30, the grip was almost literally shaved off to resemble a small ridge. That wouldn’t be a problem when the E-620 is used with either of its kit lenses but with the 14-54mm’s heft and size, it will be a little harder on the right hand. With the 50-200mm SWD or the 35-100mm, you’d have absolutely no hope of balancing the whole setup. But that’s where fitting the HLD-5 with the GS-3 gripstrap might help to bring some relief.

“No, I don’t want that!”

“I love the E-620 as it is…with the battery grip added, it won’t look small anymore and besides I know a way of keeping the whole thing small…”

Yes, I know that too. Marianne has been eyeing the delicious 50mm f2 Macro and Olympus’ rash of prime lenses coming. Oh yes…when it comes to these little optical beauties, she’s very well in touch. Right this moment, she’s happy as a lark with the 14-42mm that has now migrated from the E-510 outfit and from the shots taken, she’s doing it plenty of justice.

Measuring 5.1 x 3.7 x 2.3 inches (130 x 94 x 60 mm), the E-620 is positively tiny. That makes it 0.1 inch taller and 0.2 inch thicker than the E-420. Both these increases are easily accountable with the adoption of a larger – and hence taller – viewfinder and the rear bulk taken up by the articulating LCD monitor. As Olympus brings in a new generation of DSLRs with larger finders and full LCD articulation (as well as other goodies), slight shades of the E-30 are obviously apparent.

© Copyright Marianne Loh, Zone-10 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Captured using E-30 at f5, 1/4 sec, ISO 640, 14mm (14-54mm Mk II)

Weight-wise the E-620’s passes the scale at 1.62 lbs (740 g) with the 14-42mm as well as lens hood, BLS-1 battery and a CF memory card in place. That makes it almost 0.21 lb (92 g) heftier than a similarly equipped E-420. Apart from the larger viewfinder and the complex movable LCD monitor, added weight also comes from the in-camera image stabiliser made noteworthy because it is at least 20% more compact than anything we’ve seen from Olympus. This new and smaller I.S. mechanism will also make its way into the first generation of Micro Four-Thirds cameras starting from June 16 this year.

With the more visible bulk at the back end thanks to the protruding LCD panel, the E-620 handles a little differently to the E-420. Some suggests that it makes the E-620 a little clumsier to handle but like everything good, it takes a little getting use to. It’s not a deal breaker but it’s just different, that’s all.

© Copyright Marianne Loh, Zone-10 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Captured using E-30 at f3.3, 1/10 sec, ISO 400, 21mm (14-54mm Mk II)

When the LCD panel was twisted out in all positions, Marianne’s eyes popped wide open.

“I like this…! Now you can have the E-30 to yourself. I won’t be needing it anymore!”

So what’s with the E-620 that has gotten my fiancée so excited that I’m getting far less personal attention these days?

That’s easier to answer than I actually thought. Depending on whose perspective it is, you might get a slightly different set of answers. From Marianne, here is her fav list:

Creative Art Filters 

She’s been on a Lightroom/Photoshop binge lately and the fact that the E-620 has the same Art engine as the E-30 offers her a completely different way to look at post-capture creativity. Olympus has endowed the E-620 with the same six Creative Art filters as the E-30 but more of these later. Interestingly Marianne has so far shown very little interest in exploiting these filters…

The Articulating LCD Panel 

She has always loved that about the E-30. It gives her an amazing way to think about her photography and importantly it has opened her mind to a different approach to close-ups and all sorts of angles and perspectives. And with the prospects of a new 50mm Macro arriving constantly playing in her mind, it doesn’t take a lot to imagine the remarkable combination of the E-620’s articulating LCD and the über lens.

It's Tiny and Light 

There’s no doubt about it – the E-620’s remarkable body statistics make it very appealing and if it attracts her, it will do the same for millions of others out there. This fact alone will –permanently redefine the market. While there are also plenty of ham-fisted camera users who believe that real cameras have to be obese looking, the much broader mass market is likely to gravitate towards this Lilliputian marvel. Olympus is on to a winner here.

Wireless Flash Capability 

This was unexpected. As a ‘low-ranked’ model, nobody probably gave two hoots whether the E-620 should or shouldn’t have wireless flash operability. That it does and the fact that Marianne understood precisely what that meant, I’m feeling cornered that somewhere in the future, an FL-36R – or God forbid, the FL-50R – will have to materialise! Given her overactive imagination (photographic I meant!), the E-620 could even be at the centre of her outdoor modelling shoots.

Come to think of it, the wireless flash feature might not be as surprising as it first seemed. As is traditional now at Olympus economies of scale are as important in achieving lower production costs as it is to widen the benefits to a larger market of users.

Image Stabilisation 

Marianne thoroughly enjoyed the E-510’s built-in image stabilisation. Had the E-620 came without one, I think the other features would have paled into insignificance. Its proven mettle laid evidence to how indispensable in-camera I.S. is for those who understand how and why it works. Like me, she’s one of the many who find it endearing. But she’s also not the last to prove that proper handholding is just as critical I.S. or no I.S.

Auto Control Illumination 

Marianne commented that the E-620 reminds her of a Christmas tree when everyone’s asleep – it lights up automatically! Well I’m not only seeing her behaving like a kid in a lolly shop – it looks like my partner Ken is another one too.

It is true though that something this simple and obvious had taken all this while to appear in a camera and it took Olympus to launch it. Something tells me that this won’t be the last DSLR camera to feature it.

Let’s take a broader look at how the E-620 stacks up against the E-420, E-520 and E-30:

** with LiveView disabled

| Yellow represents similar features between the E-620 and the E-420, E-520 or both | Orange represents similar features between the E-620 and the E-30 | Grey represents features unique to the E-620 |

Information supplied by Olympus Imaging Corporation, Olympus America and Olympus (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd

There’s not a lot that the current spade of E-620 online reviews have not covered. In fact, as usual, our colleague John Foster over at www.biofos.com has an excellent coverage on the camera. Unlike our previous giant E-30 review, this article is written from a relatively inexperienced but talented photographer’s perspective and a woman to boot.

Feature Outline

Here are some views of the E-620 in terms of the placement of its features:

Nothing quite looks like the first generation of Olympus DSLR cameras such as the E-1, E-300 and E-330. These continue to be in a class of their own. The E-620 is as conservative looking as the E-30 or E-3 although there is no mistaking it for anything but an Olympus.

There’s no doubt that Marianne loved the compact size. After a short stint with the E-30, she was also glad that the E-620 feels like a fraction of the former’s weight. As a complete package – E-620 with the 14-42mm – it is exceptionally well balanced although as she pointed out, the location of the shutter release button is awkward.

Unlike the E-510/520, I have to agree with her that the release button is placed far too inwards, forcing the forefinger to strain backwards to reach it. Come to think of it, I remember Praktica’s past film SLRs where the release button actually protruded from the front like a flowering bud off a stem. I admit it looked typically ‘Soviet-industrial’ but by comparison, it might have actually worked better than the E-620’s.

© Copyright Marianne Loh, Zone-10 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Captured using E-30 at f3.3, 1/10 sec, ISO 400, 21mm (14-54mm Mk II)

Therefore to find comfort dealing with the E-620’s shutter release button, you have to actually reposition your right hand but that meant the thumb is no longer in the best position to work the command dial. In fact if you did that, the fleshy part of the palm then won’t be able to rest comfortably on the scalloped rubberised grip.

The thing about the E-620 is that ‘small’ can also have its limits. When you get to the point where precious real estate is diminishing, you also need to stop the design from getting to a degree where there’s simply not enough room to position the buttons sensibly or even get the hand to wrap itself comfortably around the camera body. Both of these are intrinsically vital to get right.

That is not to say that the E-620 is a disaster. Far from it actually. The E-620 is extremely successful as far as an outright industrial design is concerned. It looks good and God knows how Olympus has managed to squeeze so much into such a compact package. And it certainly tests the imagination as to what the company can and will do with an even smaller form factor come this June.

The back of the E-620 is a very busy place indeed. As always, the battle between button functionality and usability is balanced by the availability of real estate. With DSLR camera design, this has been made worse. By comparison, a typical film SLR camera has far less concerns about what buttons to have and what not to have because pretty much everything is physically available. There are no heretic talk about software menus and none to despair about either.

In this regard the E-620 is like any camera here. And like every other E-series model, Olympus has chosen well as to what functions to offer in button form. Some of these buttons have found traditional homes regardless of which model in the range. Examples are the AF target selector, +/- compensation, Fn (Function) recall and the AEL/AFL button. All these don’t change locations much and they probably indicate how Olympus views these functions proactively.

When Marianne held up the E-620 for the very first time, I studied her initial reactions and found none. That’s probably because her ‘old warhorse,’ the E-510 had prepared her very well for that. There aren’t a lot of system cameras out there that do this well enough but Olympus seems to get it right more often than others. At least I realised that in the E-620, I certainly don’t have to give her any orientation lessons.

It is obvious that the E-620 leans strongly towards the E-420 not just in its size and weight but in the way you handhold and use it. Like I said, Marianne could warm up to it quite naturally. It’s not a camera that she had to search for the vital controls. Like other E-series models, all the critical functions are easily within reach and it hardly takes a few seconds to locate them.

Although the contours around the E-620’s body sculpture aren’t as pronounced as those exhibited by the E-30 or even the E-520, they still offer reasonable grip for the right hand, which is crucial if you ever contemplate the larger and heavier lenses offered by Olympus and these ones really play on the camera’s overall weight distribution and balance.

Perhaps it is this point that inspires us to think of the E-620 as a parallel model to the Micro Four-Thirds. In that sense it’s far more than just the comparable size but also the way Olympus can strategically position it in the larger scheme of things. The one thing to note is that the E-620’s built-in image stabilisation mechanism was developed by Olympus to be shared with at least the first two Micro Four-Thirds cameras that are due this year.

At 20% smaller, Olympus made it possible for the E-620 not to gain as much in body thickness and weight. By holding these two down to a minimum, the E-620 can claim to be the world’s smallest DSLR body to feature a built-in I.S. mechanism. That to me isn’t an unsubstantial claim to make and it points towards some serious design internalisation – and innovation – that is going on within the company.

The thing about the E-620 is that it’s easy to dismiss its significance by merely looking at the camera from the outside. Many will likely consider that its greatest strength is its smallness but Olympus has with this model redefined ‘small’ in terms of what they are able to package within the E-620. Even as some might opine that the thickness of the LCD panel has made it a little harder to handle than the E-420 – a very moot point – the important consideration here is that Olympus is finally finding its way back to its position as a true packaging innovator – a position it held indisputably during the OM days.