Olympus has launched its latest pitch to photographers keen to move up from compact cameras to the world of digital SLR snapping.

Olympus' E-420: beginners in mind

The DSLR camera is officially targeted at “seasoned photographers and beginners to the DSLR domain”, which means the E-420 comes equipped with a ten-megapixel CMOS sensor and 28 shooting modes. Its sequential shooting mode snaps at up to 3.5 frames per second.

A nice bonus is that the E-420 has two memory card slots, one for xD-Picture Cards and the other for Compact Flash, which will boost your storage capacity and give you greater freedom of choice.

Two storage card slots are built-in

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There’s a 2.7in LCD display built into the E-420’s rear, which has a 176° viewing angle. The screen displays your potential masterpieces in real time and allows you to actively monitor the effect of shadows and the camera’s face-detection technology on the snap, before the shutter key’s pressed. On-screen indicators also highlight the level of contrast, brightness and colour, all of which can be manually adjusted.

An Ultrasonic Wave Filter System, which also features on Olympus’ old-school E-500, is built into the E-420 to stop dust particles clogging up its image sensor.

Olympus’ E-420 DSLR is available with several body kits, ranging from a 14 to 42mm lens for £380 (€450/$760) to a 25mm lens for £450 (€520/$900). As a body-only camera the E-420 will cost £340 (€410/$820) when it’s released in April.