The Mark III Olympus E- M10 - Easier Running Than Ever

You can do produce any size camera if you try. Whatever the designer draws, if a maker can enlist a crew of eight people and a recovery vehicle just over the horizon, they can send it out of the factory door. If they are wise they will wedge the door tight so that nobody can bring it back in again. It's different if a manufacturer wants to make something that is going to be successful - because part of that success will involve real people operating it in real-time. And the simpler the interface, the better chance that it will work. That is the principle around some of the changes on the new Olympus E-M10 MkIII. Look at the front - the new handgrip is much more comfortable and much more secure - it is paired with a larger and more effective thumb grip at the back. Also note the clever engineering of the three adjustment wheels on the right hand side. They are somewhat similar in shape but have been differentiated in height to allow your thumb and fingers, once trained, to recognise each one without you having to look down. You might think the mode dial is too high - like the shutter dials of some of the old Soviet film cameras - but it is that height for a good reason. You use thumb and forefinger together to make the adjustment. Likewise the on-off and pop-up flash control is the way it is for a reason - not just the nostalgia of making it look like an OM1. It is a very deliberate motion far removed from the whizzing round of the dials, and cannot be confused with any of the buttons on the right hand side. You might leave it on and drain your battery inadvertently, but if you are going to forget you have to remember to forget. Next to it is the button that captivated me - the direct screen button. One press delivers you into a Q menu with all the major parameters set ou in diagrammatic form. With the 4-way pad and the thumb wheels you can select and alter nearly anything important. I must say I find it preferably to diagrams that slide in over the screen from three direction and that rely upon pictograms and colour panels to try to say what they are going to do. Give me simple any day. You do get as much touch screen activity as you want to specify, though, and the screen image is big, bright and a colour that is characteristic of Olympus. One final note of minor praise. See how Olympus put a big silver logo on the front of the plastic body cover? Bless them, because this means that you can find the darned thing in the bottom of a camera bag in the dark when you want to cap it all off. More manufacturers should follow suit.