“Why can’t I just point my camera at what I’m seeing and record that?” If you are looking for the answer you can find it here at Cambridgeincolor.com. It’s really one of the best articles I have read recently. There are a couple of very interesting facts:

1) Angle of view

“Although the human eye has a focal length of approximately 22 mm, this is misleading because (i) the back of our eyes are curved, (ii) the periphery of our visual field contains progressively less detail than the center, and (iii) the scene we perceive is the combined result of both eyes.” and “Our central angle of view — around 40-60° — is what most impacts our perception. Subjectively, this would correspond with the angle over which you could recall objects without moving your eyes. Incidentally, this is close to a 50 mm “normal” focal length lens on a full frame camera“

2) Resolution and detail

I guess most of us thought our eye would have more “Megapixels” than a camera. Surprisingly the answer is NO! Cambridgeincolor says: “A single glance by our eyes is therefore only capable of perceiving detail comparable to a 5-15 megapixel camera (depending on one’s eyesight). However, our mind doesn’t actually remember images pixel by pixel; it instead records memorable textures, color and contrast on an image by image basis.”

3) Sensivity and Dynamic Range

“Dynamic range* is one area where the eye is often seen as having a huge advantage. If we were to consider situations where our pupil opens and closes for different brightness regions, then yes, our eyes far surpass the capabilities of a single camera image (and can have a range exceeding 24 f-stops). However, in such situations our eye is dynamically adjusting like a video camera, so this arguably isn’t a fair comparison.“

Conclusion: “Overall, most of the advantages of our visual system stem from the fact that our mind is able to intelligently interpret the information from our eyes, whereas with a camera, all we have is the raw image. Even so, current digital cameras fare surprisingly well, and surpass our own eyes for several visual capabilities. The real winner is the photographer who is able to intelligently assemble multiple camera images — thereby surpassing even our own mental image.“

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And there is another interesting article at Quesabesde (Click here to read the google english translation) The question is: “Do digital sensors lose effectiveness after some time?” The answer is No!….But not a 100% No :)

It looks like some website yesterday reported the wrong european price of the VF-3 (Dpreview said the street price was 150 Euro). According to openpn.com (CLick here) the real price of the VF-3 is 199 Euro (not 150 Euro). By the way they made an analysis of the VF-3 compared it to the VF-2 and to OVF such as E-450, D3100 or 1100D in order to give an idea of what you get. The price is now official on Olympus Germany website too! UPDATE: It looks like even Olympus America itself doesn’t know the real price of the viewfinder. The Olympus Facebook page says the VF-3 price is $149 instead of the official $179! (Thanks E-P1.net for finding this).

Concerning the E-PL3, the price of the 14-42 kit is 649 Euro… same as NEX-C3 with its 18-55. You can see a comparison between both again at openpn.com (Click here)… The E-PL3 has many features not present in the NEX. (Click here to read the google english translation).

UPDATE: a note about the wrong built-in flash rumor. The info came from external websites and I trusted them to much also because the leaked picture really gave us to believe that this might be true. Will be more careful next time with rumors coming not form my trusted sources! Thanks for your understanding!

And here is a list to some of the article I found on the web and I didn’t post yesterday:
Olympus PEN E-PL3 gets a price tag, release date (Engadget).
Olympus PL3 pricing, availability, and new viewfinder announced (Imaging Resource).
Olympus America brings a new 36x Camera with the SP-810UZ (Akihabaranews).
Olympus PEN Lite price announcement (Letsgodigital).
Olympus PEN family gets new electronic viewfinder (Dpnow).
Olympus SZ-11 & VG-145 (Photographyblog).
Olympus VF-3 Electronic Viewfinder (Photographybay).
Olympus reveals specs, pricing for PEN E-PL3 (Cnet).
VF-3: Elektronischer Sucher für Olympus Pen und XZ-1 (Photoscala).