I didn’t want to buy this thing: the beautiful OM System OM-3 camera review

I tried so bloody hard to resist buying this camera.

I’ve been using Olympus cameras for decades, I already owned three (well used) models, and could barely justify shelling out over a grand for the admittedly ridiculously stylish OM System OM-3 camera.

But then I made the mistake of watching the reviews on YouTube.

OM System (the new name for Olympus) had made the very smart move of sending out cameras en masse to loads of popular photobloggers, many of whom had never touched a Micro Four Thirds camera before.

And, by and large, they were impressed. Very, very impressed.

The camera was lauded with praise for its looks, its image quality, its weatherproofing, and its clever-clogs computational features, with even hardcore full frame aficionados declaring it to be the perfect, take everywhere camera.

And so I cracked. And here’s my first set of photos, taken with an Olympus 17mm f1.8 lens.

Naturally, I hadn’t bothered reading the manual, so these are all straight out of the camera JPGs. And I’m pretty much blown away by how much fun this thing is.

Rarely does a modern, retro-styled digital camera manage to evoke the tactile feel and vibes of a real film camera, but by ‘eck the OM-3 nails it.

And because of that, I’ve found myself shooting in B&W more than I used to, and keeping the LCD screen tucked away because I want to concentrate on the scene and not get lost in pixel peeking.

Just like how things were when I went shooting with my beloved Olympus OM2n film camera.

For the basics, the OM-3 performs every bit as well as my Nikon Z8, but races ahead when it comes to usability, feel and, well, fun.

This camera brings a smile to your face and just encourages you to get off your arse, go outside and start shooting.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention all the unique, super-smart technology lurking within the slender frame of the OM-3.

Its computational photography features leaves most of its rivals in the dust, with built in Neutral Density and Graduated Filters adding a huge amount of flexibility.

The image stabilisation remains class leading and I was able to get pin sharp images from handheld four second exposures. Outrageous!

Talking of handheld photos, if you don’t think 20MP images are big enough (they almost always are, regardless of what the megapixel freaks try to tell you) you can use the built in sensor shifting technology to produce whopping 50MP handheld images or 80MP if you stick the camera on a tripod.

Great for sweeping landscapes but not so good if there’s a load of movement going on in the frame, unless that’s an arty effect you’re looking for.

So I’ve got this far without mentioning the mode dial on the front which is nothing short of an absolute joy to use.

At first I was a bit suspicious of the thing, thinking it may be a bit gimmicky, but being able to instantly switch between various filter styles really adds to the shooting experience.

I’m still exploring the multitude of options that this dial opens up, but I can see it’s something that’s going to get used a lot.

I can’t really get across how much fun I’ve had this camera. It’s compelling me to go out and take pics, no matter what the weather.

It’s also got the first smartphone app that manages to seamlessly transfer images over to my phone for Instagramming without an eternity of faffing about (I’m looking at you, Nikon and Ricoh).