LCD Display
The Canon 50D has a three-inch, 920,000-pixel LCD on the back. The Olympus E-30 has a 2.7-inch, 230,000-pixel LCD monitor on a hinge and pivot mount that allows the screen to face up, down, left right or even toward the subject during shooting. The feature makes the E-30 just as convenient as most cell phones for taking self portraits. In our use of the cameras, the key features of the LCDs – Canon's high pixel count and Olympus's articulation – don't make them fundamentally more useful.

Olympus E-30	Canon 50D

It may be that with plenty of use and practice, we could get to the point where flipping the LCD on the E-30 out and down would make it possible to shoot holding the camera directly over our head, which seems as though it would be great for shooting in tight crowds. We shoot weddings and parties, and need to hold the camera up high to get certain shots. For our use, though, live view with the LCD flat on the back of the camera is fine – staring straight up on a crowded dance floor is a recipe for getting an elbow in the stomach or a toe stepped on. The other scenario for a pivoting LCD is a bit more specialized: it could be convenient when the camera is mounted on a microscope or other technical device. In the setups we've used, the E-30 would have made life a lot easier.

The E-30's flip-out LCD in action

As far as the 50D's display pixel count goes, we can only say that it is very nice. We mean that as faint praise. As beautiful as it is, it did not help us in live view – we checked focus by enlarging the image, and the pixel count didn't make that easier. In playback, the high-resolution screen allowed us to see a large portion of the image when we enlarged shots high enough to check sharpness. In part, we could do that because we're awfully nearsighted, and can peer very closely at the display. The screen can render very fine detail, but the detail is still very small on the screen. It seems likely that most users will simply crank up the magnification to see detail. More of it shows, so it cuts down a bit on the scrolling necessary to check an area.