I tell ya, you spend half a week catching up the website’s FJ Westcott catalog (we now have around 240 Westcott products, all related to professional studio lighting, on our website. Booyah) and you find that your sales manager beats you to the punch on the exciting new Olympus digital camera.

So it goes, but I’m not about to let that stop me from throwing out a few of the interesting highlights of this product from a standing Oly user:

1. Form factor. Phil stated that it’s similar to a 520, which is true enough, but it’s also a bit smaller yet than that, kinda like a chunky 420, making it one of the smallest DSLRs going still, and the smallest going with in-body image stabilization

2. Addressing user complaints: Olympus has a long reputation of including small bits of pioneering, but the E-620 is also a solid show of addressing standard complaints with the intro E system bodies. It’s got a better viewfinder, bigger, with the info at the bottom and not on the right any more. Plus, they upgraded the old 3 point AF to a 7 point system (5 of which are full-time cross style)

3. Oly innovation. Like that swing swivel LCD that made its appearence on digital cams with the E-3. And, here’s my favorite gimmick I’ve seen on a DSLR since Nikon busted out the virtual level on its D3:

That’s right, backlit buttons. Does it add anything to final image quality? Not a lick. Did everyone in the office go “oh yeah, I’m surprised no one’s done that yet?” You betcha.

What Olympus’ plans for their 4xx and 5xx series cam is I’m not sure yet, and I doubt anyone will know until they finally present their Micro 4/3 offerings, but I gotta say, there were a lot of Oly users waiting for exactly this E-620. Good show.