Why I bought the E-520

With the announcement of the E-30, and it's release in January 2009, I still went ahead to upgrade my E-510 to E-520 recently. On paper, the E-30 looks like a winner, but two things put me off... the lack of weather-proofing and initial high price.

Not that I will ever shoot in the rain, but I think at this level, Olympus needs to come out with something that they can compete with the competitors, and weather proofing is one thing they can excel in, because they have made all these wonderful weather proof lens. It just needs a body to match...

The high launch price of the E-30 is another thing that is preventing me from making the impulse purchase. For the same price, I can get the E-3. Although the E-3 is a year old but it still is the flagship camera and it comes with weather proofing. So until the E-30 price drops to a level (I think S$1,300 for body only) that I'm comfortable with, I won't be forking out any money for it.

So, that leaves me with no upgrade path for now, but the gear acquisition syndrome in me say I must get myself a Christmas present, and that's how the E-520 landed in my dry box :) The 'upgrade' may be subtle on paper, but I think the E-520 fixes a few of those annoyance on the E-510 and best of all, the out-of-camera jpegs from the E-520 are very close to that of the E-3. So I have something 'new' I can play with until the E-30 becomes more affordable in 6 months or so...