So its been a while since I have been on a blogger strike...much has past since the last post...changed jobs - changed places- met many new people- have great set of friends...and yes... I now work at Nike- cool team - coolest project ever...and the highlight of the month was handling the coolest SLR since.

..popped along to my local shop today for what ended up being an hour testing session. The first third was intrigued by trying a mac book pro. I was less convinced by this than what came later but it is certainly an option when I need to upgrade my laptop next year.

The real fun happened during the rest of the hour when time travel occured and I went into another world.

First maybe I need to explain my equipment background...the basics of it is that I am coming from a humble OLY C8080 WZ

So I picked up this time machine, namely Olympus E-3. Snuggly fitted into my right hand. They've certainly designed that to feel right! It is definitely not too big or heavy and really needs the grip to save my poor little finger from falling off.

The first thing I did was something I've been waiting to do for two months now. Turn that LCD round so it faced inwards and clicked into place (who needs a LCD screen when you are a extending your body into a time travel?!). The clicking was good and the motion of the lcd felt secure - Just like the C8080.

With the LCD closed I set about looking at the controls. Everything felt familiar quickly (I think I've read the manual too much) until I realized I hadn't turned the camera on. How does that work?! :) Didn't take long to switch it on and I started flicking the dials into place. It's great there is no mode dial as the fluidity possible with the main and sub dials feel brilliant.

After a good number of minutes playing to see what I could get to come up on the control panel I realized I hadn't looked through the viewfinder yet. This was bright, improved and just what I expected. Half pressing the shutter the prehistoric kit lens snapped into focus. I picked up the D-200 nearby to compare but couldn't manage to turn it on. Guess the battery was flat. I continued to look around trying different auto focus modes to see what it was like but to be honest I wasn't sure half the time if it was focused or not. This I realized was down to it focusing so quickly and, in my excitement, not yet identifying naturally the viewfinders display as to when something is in focus. (just occurred to me I didn't noticed the viewfinders information display at all, hmm..)

The next realization was that I hadn't actually taken a photograph - so..snap - that felt wonderful. I then looked to review the results and continued my exploration into this new world. After a while I remembered something I wanted to try - continuous shutter - with sports photography being important to me. And here it was that life will never be the same. ching ching ching ching ching ching ching ching ...my heart skipped a beat...ching ching ching ching ching...it's never going to stop...I can't take it anymore, I have to take my finger off the shutter before I have a cardiac arrest. A satisfied smile appeared on my face- ORGASMIC.

I got my breath back switching it to RAW+JPG and then let rip again. This time I counted 8 shots before the buffer was full - then a few seconds later I hit the shutter again and got another frame. However, then nothing more was to behold. The card was full. Practicing how to delete pictures was as expected and I decided to see what this Live View thing is all about - turning the LCD round for the first time I wrongly tried to position the screen like on the C8080 to look from above but found quickly that was not possible. With it snapped in place I held the camera up, again wasn't sure if it was in focus (it turned out to be), and took my first E-3 live view picture.

Quickly moving on to yet another feature I wanted to try I noticed the time - the hour was up and I had to get going. What a bummer! I quickly put some of the settings back to how they were and proudly positioned the camera on it's stand but then realised that however much I wanted to buy this camera now I wouldn't be able to. It maybe would have been fun to have taken a memory card and brought the pics home. I didn't though due to already deciding that, bar something being drastically wrong with the E-3 or a feature on another camera being so important, I will buy the E-3 next year.

I'm not sure if my strong emotions towards what I had just experienced was just because I haven't really used a Professional DSLR before (other than the odd shoot whilst studying) or because I need to get out more or because I'm just so obviously biased or..its just that canon and nikon suck at their engineering? Could it just be that the Olympus E-3 is a brilliant camera? Well I think its the latter...

OLY- E-3 is the camera, I have been waiting for...the body, the swd lens -the LCD- I love all of it..handling it reminded me of Ettore Bugatti who once famously commented..." Make a good thing decadent" and with E3 Olympus sure has !!

Canon nikon...try and keep up with Oly please...