Feature rich Four Thirds DSC intro'd by Olympus

Olympus has boosted the creativity quotient for lensslingers with its release today of its latest digital SLR based on the Four Thirds image processing system. The new 12.3 megapixel E-620 includes a set of art filters for producing on the fly effects such as

• emulating the pop art style of the 1960s
• bathing subjects in an ethereal light giving them an unworldly quality
• imitating the flat soft and pastel lighting of movie flashbacks
• softening the shade and highlight areas in a frame to add elegance to a shot
• draining the color and adding grain to an image to make it look ripped from an old documentary film and
• duplicating an image captured with a pinhole camera.

It also has the ability to capture overlapping exposures, which can open the door to all kinds of experimental effects.

Images with the DSC can be framed and shot through its pivoting 2.7-inch, 230,000 dot LCD or optical viewfinder. Pivoting displays enable a shooter to grab photos at extreme or unorthodox angles without twisting into a pretzel.

Another creative bonus built into the E-620 is the power to shoot at a variety of aspect ratios—4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 6:6 and 3:4.

The bytecam, built around a Four Thirds CMOS image sensor (17.3 x 13mm), also has a full complement of bracketing options, not only exposure bracketing but ISO, flash and white balance bracketing, too.

There's also an array of in-camera editing functions such as shadow adjustment, red-eye fix, image cropping, monotone and sepia conversion, saturation tuning and resizing.

Other features include face detection, four frame per second continuous shooting, in camera optical image stablization, shutter speeds from 60–1/4000 second and light sensitivity from ISO 100–3200.

The E-620 is scheduled to reach retailers in May at a body only price of $699.99 and a kit tab of $799.99 with 14–42mm Zuiko digital zoom lens.