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Olympus's Latest Entry Into The Pro-sumer SLR Sub $1000 Category
Date of Review: Jan 5, 2005
The Bottom Line: Only if you have the cash, this is a great entry into the SLR market.
***** UPDATED AS OF 1/11/05 ****** Scroll to bottom for update!
Fresh out of the gates this holiday season was the Olympus E-Volt E300 digital SLR camera. Capitalizing on Olympus' interchangable digital Zukio lens system, this 8.1 Megapixel SLR comes in at just under $1000 with a 14 - 45mm lens included.
The Experience:
Being our first Digital SLR it was a difficult adjustment shooting with the viewfinder only. The LCD screen does not allow you to preview the shot "live". Perhaps this is the limitations of the SLR design. Which would explain why the display screen is fixed and does not angle out or down. I miss this feature the most since it is usefull if you are shooting above crowds or otherwise not using the optical viewfinder.
Also on par with a normal SLR, zoom is manual so it does take two hands to hold and operate this camera. Curiously enough, there is an outer ring on the lens that most likely allows you to manually focus, but since we did not try using that setting, I cannot confirm this.
There are two autofocus modes, spot and zone. A fantastic thing about this camera is that autofocus is very quick. When you half-press the shutter button you get a confirmation beep in less than a half second. That's the camera telling you it's ready to rock. As a matter of fact, it takes about a half second to power up. So honestly, starting out cold, from powerup to first shot takes less than a second. I love that.
Images taken from this camera are superb. It ought to be, for an 8.1 megapixel camera. Image size selection defaults to HQ, which is adequate for normal tasks. However for shooting detailed objects or scenes the SHQ setting is recommended. The E-Volt has am impressive Macro setting, allowing the lens to come within 2 inches of an object. Used this way, picture quality is stunning. As far as Shutter Lag is concerned there is a deceptive bit of activity that you should be aware that in the SHQ mode a shot can take more than 5 seconds to record on the card. However, you can still take a picture while it is writing! I was fooled into thinking that you had to wait for the blinking red light to stop signifying that it was done writing to the card. Fast followup shots are no problem.
The E-Volt uses Compact Flash memory. Shocking since Olympus had been pushing the xD card system pretty hard on the rest of the line. No memory comes with the camera, but 512 CF cards are cheap these days. Better yet, a new kind of higher speed CF card has come out with improved architecture that allows even faster recording times called Ultra from SanDisk. The camera comes with a nifty and compact charger for the proprietary battery. Ours came up to full power inside of a 4 hour charge.
The camera itself is not as heavy as it looks. Due to aluminum construction if your lens doesn't weigh a ton you could lug this camera with you all day. You may want to buy a better neck strap as the one Olympus supplies is rather cheesy.
The flash is of the flip-up variety. However it does not deploy automatically. A button within thumb's reach releases the flash with an authoritative thud. The factory default on the flash is way too hot. Fear not, as it is adjustable.
The E-Volt has several user modes which allow you to shoot in various situations. Fireworks Mode, Candle Mode, Landscape Mode, Night Scene Mode, etc. All of them work extremely well. However the menu system takes some getting used to. And this complaint is coming from someone who already owns and uses the C5050z also made by Olympus. The menu system resides on the viewscreen when it is not showing the picture in view-mode. Again, since this is an SLR you can only compose through the viewfinder. However you use the LCD viewscreen to set your modes on the camera. Night Scene mode is a bit tricky on this camera as we had to turn down the flash to prevent from whiting out the subjects. It does an excellent job of catching the dark background, however. We used Candle Mode with a tripod to take very detailed night skyline shots. Be aware that under sodium lights or flourescent lights the color cast will be especially apparent in pics taken in this mode. Landscape Mode was supposed to highlight greens and blues but side by side comparisons of shots taken both in normal and Landscape Mode yielded little difference. Again, getting used to composing the shot with an SLR digital cam was a bit of a pain since the viewfinder is too small to have a headsup display inside of it. So you find yourself pulling away from the viewfinder to look at the LCD viewscreen to check settings.
I wish I could try one of the higher powered zoom lens but those cost more than the actual camera. However, I am quite satisfied with the E-Volt overall and would not hessitate to take it out on a trip abroad.
******* UPDATE 1/11/05 *******
After grilling the Olympus techs at the recent CES show in Las Vegas I was able to answer some of my burning questions. Most importantly, I corrected my mistake about the HQ vs. SHQ Shutter Lag issue. He assured me no matter what mode I was in I could shoot 2.5 frames per second. Now that's fast! One unnerving thing is that even though the camera on takes a second to power up it is because of the "cleaning mode" that takes place. Without it, it would be faster! Wow! I'd imagine there is a way to deactivate it, but hey, it's a nifty feature that is worth having.
