Olympus E-420 for sports?

[thombo]

Hi,

I'm interested in buying the Olympus E-420 as a companion for my skitrips. I love this one because it's very small and would easily fit in my backpack without adding too much weight to it.

Now I'm wondering if it would be possible to take good action shots, preferably using the 3.5 frames per second option in order to process them and get results like this (http://zinner.org/z/plogger/images/people/mike/snowboardmultishot.jpg). Now I'm a bit worried since the camera does not have an image stabilisation function, or wouldn't this be a problem?

Grts

Thombo

[speaklightly]

Thombo-

The E-420 should work well for ski photos. I could not check out the photos that you referenced as the link did not work. Because the lighting conditions are fairly bright for ski photo, the lack of IS should not be a problem, as your shutter speeds will be quite high.

Please just remember the old formula of 1 over the fcal length of the lens that you are using to determine the minimum needed shutter speed. It works like this: If you are at 200mm with your lens, the minimum needed shutter speed is 1/200th or higher.

Sarah Joyce

[raven15]

I concur with everything speaklightly said. If you are moving while you shoot, you should try for a shutter speed of 1/500th second regardless. I am sure you know, you'll have to be a little careful with it in the snow and being bumped around. It is well-assembled and I have been pretty harsh on mine with water and bumps, but it's not every-thing-proof.

[thombo]

Now, can it be difficult to take good pictures in normal situations without the IS function? Then I mean for example when going on a city trip or holiday and taking some random shots of all kinds of subjects (landscape, portrait, night shots,...). Is this a function you will really miss or would you not notice it in the resulting images? They always seem to note it as a "contra" argument against this camera in reviews on the web...

Because if you wouldn't notice it, then I'll probably be buying this camera real soon. It would be my first DSLR. I wanna step up from my regular non-DSLR Lumix because of the more functionalities and the more ways of experimenting in gaining good quality results...

(thnx for the replies)

[TheWengler]

I'm pretty sure people got along just fine before image stabilization ever existed. In certain situations it's helpful. Most of the time though, when IS would be helpful I'm using a tripod anyway. It all depends on what you'll be taking pictures of and what the lighting conditions will be like. Does your camera have IS? If it does, then shut if off for a few days and see how it goes.

[raven15]

I rarely miss IS except when using my 70-300mm lens. If you are just using the kit lens, you should be fine, you can always crank the ISO to 800. Even the 40-150mm should be fine most of the time.

[speaklightly]

Raven is correct-

If you handle your Olympus E-420 properly, being sure to not get too far zoomed out with a lens like the ZD 70-300mm lens you should be just fine. IMHO two ZD lenses work extremely well with the E-420. They are the ZD 12-60mm, a really amazing lens and the ZD 14-42mm kit lens.

Those two lenses should really make handling your sking photos quite easy and convenient.

Sarah Joyce

[thombo]

Thanks for your comment, I'm now looking into this kit where you get the E-420 together with two ZD lenses: the 14-24mm and the 40-150mm. All this for € 569, which seems like a very reasonable price, no?

Just too bad you can't also get that pancake lens with it.. That would have made it ultra-compact!

Anyhow: I'm 99% convinced right now.. :)

[speaklightly]

thombo-

The Olympus E-420 and the ZD 14-42mm and ZD 40-150mm lens will give you focal length coverage, in 35mm terms, from 28mm to 300mm. Both lenses are very good and highly regarded.

Sarah Joyce

[thombo]

Just wanted to let you guys now I bought the E-520 with the two kit lenses. The E-420 was a bit too small to feel good in my hands so I went for the bigger brother...

I shot some pics already and the quality is really nice, looking forward to using it on my skitrip!

[speaklightly]

thombo-

Congratulations on your new camera! The E-520 is an excellent choice as you will also have in body image stabilization.

Sarah Joyce