I am thinking of buying a new digital camera soon, so am trying to decide which one I want. I currently have an Olympus D-600L which I love because it has a TTL viewfinder, it has a great lense and still takes great photos in the right conditions. However it is starting to lag behind current cameras.

I can't really justify a proper digital SLR, not even the Canon D60, that is just too much money to spend on a camera (and it's a bit bulkier than I would like). I am therefore looking at the top end non-SLRs.

The one I like the best at the moment is the Nikon 5700. However I'm not sure if I'm going to like the electronic viewfinder. Is it really good enough to actually use properly ?

The other camera I might consider would be the Olympus E20, but that's about as big as the real SLRs, which puts me off.

Any other comments on the Nikon 5700 would be appreciated.

I dont have the 5700 but I do have the 4500. Not the same camera at all but the same generation of Nikon's. I'm happy with it.
If you want some good info on the 5700 go to: http://www.dpreview.com
They're online forums almost rival this one (the devil you say!) as far as good info, and they do really detailed in-depth reviews. Heres the review for the 5700.

Let us know what you decide.

Z~

I know about dpreview (I linked to them in the original post), their reviews really are the most thorough reviews of anything I have ever seen.

My choice of camera so far is based just about exclusively on the dpreview reviews.

Their forums however are not quite so useful for gauging differences between cameras as they seem to attract people with massively polarised views on which camera is the best. In other words it is fully of people who will defend their choice of camera to the death, even when they are not particularly happy with it.

I know you get people like that on all forums, but they appear to be very thick on the ground over at dpreview.

oops...

I've gotten some good info out of their forum in the past, but it is very prolific, and you are correct there are a lot of users who will fight to the death for their brand. I think the fact the forums themselves are broken into specific brands probably exacorbates this issue.
Oh well...
Good luck anyway!

Z~

I have had an E5700 since the end of July. Do you have any spcific questions? I don't have time right now to go into a freeform review, but I'll be happy to answer questions when I get back on here later in the week. You can also search for my posts in the dpreview forum (TwistedMelon). The forums here are unfortunately full of people who are all about hearsay ad don't actually know anything useful at all. Even most of the so-called experts are complete newbies by the standards of this forum. I used to read and post quite a bit there but it just got terribly boring and uninteresting. This forum is still one of the best I've ever had the pleasure of using. I'm here now specifically for non-empeg purposes.

Bruno

The main question I have is the one I asked about the EVF in the original post. Is the EVF really usable ? Does it feel anything like a normal TTL view finder ?

The only other question I have is over the "Nikon-ness" of the images. In many of the samples I have seen the pictures almost seem to have a view camera feel to them that seems to be common to all the NikonCoolpix cameras. Do you find this ?

You might want to wait unitl March. Canon is supposedly going to announce 2 new DSLR cameras. So, far they are being called the D40 (a 4MP digital version of the EOS Rebel) and the D80 (an 8MP fullframe sensor version of the EOS 3). The D40 is rumored to be around $1500. This is all rumors, but Canon France has confirmed that the D60 is discontinued...so...

I fear $1500 is still too expensive, once you add in $600 or so for lenses as well. I'm in no hurry though, I'm not allowed to buy anything until my last year's company accounts are in order...

For what it's worth, I recently decided to give my Canon Powershot G1 to my sister and get a brand new Powershot G3. It's a great camera. I took a bunch of good pictures with it, and then managed to break it by dropping it. Canon wants $150 to fix it for me. Not to say that any other camera would have a better chance of surviving the same damage.

Still, I'm planning to pay the money. For the "prosumer" category of cameras, I still think the G3 is the best camera. The winning features for me were:

- fancy flash support (including 1st or 2nd curtain sync)
- raw mode (with software for XP and Mac, plus some free software)
- low-light focus assist lamp (oddly missing from Nikon prosumer cameras)
- all manner of adjustments, including pixel-closeups to help you manual focus

No other non-SLR camera had all those features. Just be sure not to drop it!

The Canon G3 doesn't have a real viewfinder, which rules it out for me.

The Canon G3 doesn't have a real viewfinder, which rules it out for me.

Huh? It's an optical rangefinder that zooms in tandem with the main lens. Like any rangefinder, there are parallax issues if you're close to your subject. In practice, I shoot everything with the flip-out screen, which allows me to hold the camera at waist-level rather than eye-level.

Huh? It's an optical rangefinder that zooms in tandem with the main lens. Like any rangefinder, there are parallax issues if you're close to your subject.

I always have more problem with camera with two separate optical systems. I like my viewfinder to show me exactly what the sensor is seeing. It has to be a SLR like TTL viewfinder (for example the Olympus E20) or an EVF for me.

I shoot everything with the flip-out screen

I really dislike using flip out screens to shot pictures, I can't get a good feel of what I am looking at. I can see how they can be useful in some situations though.

It all comes down to personal preferences really and I need some kind of TTL viewfinder on my camera. That's what I have on my current Olympus and I couldn't go back to using a compact camera style viewfinder again.