After several years of bring about expensive , mellow - end moving-picture show SLRs , Olympus has finally get into the consumer digital SLR market with the first SLR that conforms to the 4/3 standard , a lens and trope - sensing element spec that has yet to be widely adopted . price at $ 999 , the new Evolt E-300 competes directly with Canon ’s $ 999 EOS Digital Rebel XT and Nikon ’s $ 1,299 D70 . While I ’m beaming to see Olympus last recruit this market , I ’m a little disappointed that its first raid is a photographic camera that pass more in the “ pinch - up ” category than in the “ setting - the - received ” class . Nevertheless , the E-300 deliver very good quality photo in a consistence that ’s comfortable to book and easy to use .
The E-300 is shorter in height than a typical removable - lens of the eye SLR . This is due to Olympus ’ singular viewfinder engine room , which use a serial publication of mirrors to bounce lighting around the side of the detector and up to the viewfinder , rather than traditional SLR designing , which use a single mirror to bouncing light upward into a optical prism , and then to the viewfinder . The practical issue is a camera that looks like an SLR with its top cut off . The Evolt is large than the Canon Digital Rebel XT and Pentax ist DS , but a little smaller than the Nikon D70 ( ) , thanks to its truncated top . Unlike Olympus ’ late E - serial SLRs , you’re able to not practice the Evolt ’s LCD as a finder .
Olympus ships the E-300 with a 14 - 45 mm f3.5 - 5.6 zoom lens of the eye . As with most digital SLRs , you must apply a multiplication ingredient to any genus Lens you attach to the Evolt to determine its tantamount 35 mm focal distance . With its 2x multiplication factor , the stock lens is equivalent to a 28 - 90 mm genus Lens on a 35 millimetre film camera . ( Olympus makes a range of zoom and prime lenses that provide an equivalent focal length image of 14 - 600 mm . ) In addition , because the television camera conforms to the 4/3 spec , you could use third - political party 4/3 lense , although at the moment , there ’s only one — Sigma ’s Sigma 18 - 125 .
Because their lenses are removable , D - SLRs can occasionally suffer from debris on their image sensor . The Evolt sports a unique detritus - rebuff characteristic called the Supersonic Wave Filter , which put a particular gauze-like filter in front of the CCD to catch dust . Every time you power up the camera , this filter shakes vigorously to jostle the dust loose , and the debris is pile up by a piece of awkward tape below the sensor .
This is a clever mechanism , though the extra cleanup time does think the tv camera has a slightly slower inauguration time than some of its competitors .
Shooting
The Evolt ’s charge plate and metal construction make for a camera that feels hardy and comfortable to hold , while its heedful control layout make it easy to rapidly set preferences on the fly . A dial on the top of the camera lets you pick out from a typical potpourri of shooting modes — program , precedence modes , full manual , and a potpourri of pre - programmed scene modes .
Buttons on the back of the photographic camera offer warm access to whitened Libra the Balance and New York minute preferences , exposure compensation , metering and focal point modality , and ISO mise en scene . Unlike its competition , the Evolt miss a disjoined status LCD . rather , the main LCD is used to expose the current shot argument , and to allow for feedback when altering configurations . change of the essence configurations is bare and agile and because the camera includes a good status readout inside the finder , you may change authoritative configurations without having to take your heart from the finder .
The Evolt ’s autofocus is fairly straightaway , though I feel that it consistently had difficulty operate focal point in low light , and even in bright - light and low - line situations . The Evolt ’s viewfinder is smart and provides comprehensive feedback of your current shot options , making for an overall comfortable shooting experience .
My only complaint with the television camera ’s controls is the deficiency of any type of controller for cycling through reciprocal pic after meter . Several competing camera have such a feature , and it ’s often all the manual control that you call for .
Shooting operation is utterly adequate , offering a burst charge per unit of approximately 2.5 physical body per secondment , and the photographic camera writes file to memory very quickly . unluckily , the television camera can only shoot bursts of about four images before it needs time to write its information to memory . Until it ’s done , the television camera locks up and wo n’t take . I ’d prefer a burst - rate slowdown over a complete shooting lockout . Though the camera lacks a bulb setting , it can do exposure of up to 8 min .
Image Quality
As I have a bun in the oven from an Olympus camera , the Evolt render fantabulous trope quality . Shooting with the included 14 - 45 mm lens of the eye , the camera yields very decent particular and bite , thanks to the quality of its oculus and its 8 - megapixel detector .
colour flavor and tone are both very practiced , though Olympus seems to have tuned the tv camera to produce somewhat oversaturated images . ( Many people have report that the oversaturation is more pronounced when shooting in the Adobe RGB color space than it is in the sRGB color blank . ) However , the Evolt offers a phone number of options for adjusting contrast and color , and ply a far greater cooking stove of contrast and color configurations than any of its competitors . If you really require to get skilful results from this camera , you ’ll be advantageously - served by shooting new images and processing them yourself .
Though the camera offers ISOs from 100 to 1600 , anything above 400 produces significantly farinaceous photos . This is the only position where the Evolt fall down when compared to its rival – the Canon Digital Rebel XT and the Nikon D70 just do better at higher ISOs .
Further elaborate the issue is electron lens survival of the fittest . Though Olympus has made a sound exploit to create a full range of lenses , offering a safe selection of rapid climb Lens and some prize flush , the 4/3 standard has not taken off . While this wo n’t be a Brobdingnagian result for the chance photographer , it can be a limitation if you who want the most quality and price options as your photography attainment grow . Olympus arrogate that their “ build from the land up to be digital ” lens / photographic camera combination give 4/3 system cameras the reward over digital cameras adapt to practice film lens . While there ’s quite a little of good theory to back up this title , in the end , the Evolt ’s figure — though perfectly militant — don’t show a detectable melioration .
Macworld’s Buying Advice
The Olympus Evolt E-300 is a very good camera . It ’s well - built and yield excellent double . However , you ’ll get better high - ISO prototype lineament from Canon and Nikon photographic camera ( as well as better JPEG salvo shooting ) and a skillful lens selection from just about any other camera manufacturing business .
However , the camera is thick and easy when germinate . If you ’re shopping in this marketplace , you should definitely get your hands on an Evolt and give it a effort .
[ Ben Long is the author ofComplete Digital Photography , 3rd Edition ( Charles River Books , 2004 ) . ]
[ 5/6/05 – We corrected information about the focal duration range of Olympus ’ rapid climb and prime lenses and clarified info about JPEG explosion shooting using Canon and Nikon cameras . Also , the Evolt E-300 can do exposure of up to 8 minutes , not 30 seconds as we ’d previously noted.—Ed ]
Specifications
Jury Tests
Scale = Excellent , Very Good , Good , Flawed , Unacceptable
How we tested : We took a photo of a stock test scene with each camera under controlled conditions , with the news bulletin turned off , with the lily-white - point stage setting at tungsten , and at the same aperture and shutter - speed mise en scene . All other preferences were at machinelike and all in - tv camera image - processing option were set at factory nonpayment . image were save as JPEGs . A jury of expert looked at our test figure of speech , both on screen and print by an Epson Stylus Photo 2200 , and rated color character and clarity as Excellent , Very Good , Good , Flawed , or Unacceptable.—Macworld Lab testing by Ben Long and James Galbraith
