Some interesting comments from Yoshiyuki Nada, technical product manager for Olympus, regarding the live view function of the new Olympus E-330 camera.

“We expect all digital SLR will have this live view function in the near future. Some customers who haven’t used an SLR but a digital compact camera simply wonder why a DSLR doesn’t have the live view function. They are used to using the live view function. Therefore in answer to your question the live view function is due to customer demand.

On the other hand, some professional photographers such as nature, macro and studio photographers have requested a DSLR that has the live view function.

…The E-330 has a newly developed image sensor that we call the live MOS sensor -the FFT CCD can’t show the live view. We developed it in order to get better battery consumption and image quality. This sensor can provide low noise image.

There are some DSLRs, which can show the live view using a main image sensor. But these are limited in the time they can show the image on the LCD. This is because to continue showing live view makes a sensor overheat and that affects image quality. We solved this as well and the E-330 has no such limitation.”

Website : Interview with Yoshiyuki Nada