The Olympus EVOLT E-300 is a digital camera
targeted to advanced amateur photographers desiring
the image quality and flexibility provided by
a digital SLR. It has 8.0 megapixel resolution
on a 4/3 in. (18 x 13.5 mm) CCD image sensor,
and can be purchased body only or with the 14-45mm
(28-90mm, 35 mm equivalent) f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital
Lens kit.
3x
Optical Zoom
14-45mm f/3.5-5.6
Wide-angle
14mm
(28mm, 35mm equivalent)
Telephoto
45mm
(90mm, 35mm equivalent)
A second 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5 Zuiko Digital Lens
is also available. We received both lenses for
review. Together, the two lenses provide a wide-angle
to telephoto focal lengths of 28-300mm (35mm,
equivalent) 10x optical zoom coverage.
4x
Optical Zoom
40-150mm f/3.5-4.5
Wide-angle
40mm
(80mm, 35mm equivalent)
Telephoto
150mm
(300mm, 35mm equivalent)
The four pictures above were taken at the same
position to demonstrate the 10x optical zoom reach
of the two lenses combined. One of the advantage
of a dSLR is the ability to use interchangeable
lenses suited for specific jobs and the E-System
has lenses ranging from a super wide-angle 14mm
to a whopping 600mm telephoto (all expressed in
35mm equivalent focal lengths).
Carrying an extra lens in my backpack and stopping
and changing lens midway during a shoot is an
altogether different experience from simply zooming
in using one of the ultra zoom digital camera,
such as the 10x optial zoom (38-380mm, 35mm equivalent)
Olympus
Camedia C-770. In the following images, as
well as the sample images in the photo gallery,
I have used both lenses and identified them where
appropriate.
There is a Macro Scene Mode on the Olympus EVOLT
E-300, and it sets the ISO to AUTO, WB to AUTO,
metering mode to ESP, AF to S-AF+MF. Of course,
the actual macro capability is a function of the
lens you use, and you don't need to use the Macro
scene mode. In the picture above, I simply used
Programmed Auto since I wanted to set the ISO.
I find that I obtain my best macro results using
the 40-150mm F3.5-4.5 lens set at maximum telephoto.
If you are into macro photography, check out the
50mm f/2.0 Macro Zuiko Digital Lens which allows
you to move in as close as 24 cm (9.45 in.) with
a 35mm equivalent of 100mm and a large F2.0 aperture.
White Balance
Indoors
AWB
Incandescent 3600K
Manual WB
As the above three pictures show, the auto white
balance (AWB) indoors under tungsten artificial
light tends toward the yellow. Preset Incandescent
(3600 Kelvin colour temperature) seems to come
closest, but is still incorrect. Fortunately,
there is One-Touch Manual WB that is easy to set
and provides excellent results. As expected, AWB
works well in natural light.
ISO
Comparisons
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600
The Olympus EVOLT E-300 has 3 ISO settings going
from ISO 100 to ISO 400, plus the ability to "boost"
the ISO up to ISO 800 and ISO 1600. The 100%
crops above (area delimited by the white square)
demonstrate the noise at the available ISO Speeds
of 100, 200 and 400, plus the two boosted ISOs
of 800 and 1600. The images above have been taken
indoors at night under two regular household incandescent
bulbs. At ISO 100 and 200, noise is under control.
At ISO 400, noise is surprisingly visible, and
the presence of noise is evident by very faint
colour speckles. Noise is visibly present at boosted
ISO 800 and ISO 1600.
Chromatic
Aberrations
I have not been able to find much CA in everyday
high-contrast shots, and where it is present it
is minimal. The corner delimited by the red square
at top left, and reproduced at 100% crop at bottom
right, shows some purple fringing.
Long Shutter
Speed
45mm (90mm), Manual, ESP,
30 sec., F11, ISO 100
Manual WB, Self-timer 2 sec., Tripod Used
Noise Reduction ON
using the 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 lens
The Olympus EVOLT E-300 allows the use of a long
shutter speed of up to 30 sec. in Manual and Shutter-Priority
modes (plus up to 8 minutes Bulb in Manual mode),
therefore allowing night photography. Generally,
with CCD image sensors, noise usually becomes
more prominent at slow shutter speeds. When you
set Noise Reduction to ON in the menu [Menu -
Camera 2 - Noise Reduction - ON], the EVOLT E-300
has special noise reduction algorithm that automatically
kicks in at shutter speeds at 30 sec. and longer
and you'll notice a longer processing time (approx.
twice as long) before the next picture can be
taken.
To test this noise reduction algorithm, we decided
to take a low-light indoors shot. To obtain a
long exposure, I place Bamm-Bamm under my desk
where it's dark.
I experiment a bit to obtain the optimum exposure,
eventually settling on 30 sec. at F11. Even at
this long shutter speed, the EVOLT E-300's noise
reduction seems to be working great, producing
a nice smooth blurring effect of the background.
By the way, here's what happens if you do NOT
use noise reduction on such a long exposure (notice
the coloured pixels, click for original image):
Long Shutter
Speed
45mm (90mm), Manual, ESP,
30 sec., F11, ISO 100
Manual WB, Self-timer 2 sec., Tripod Used
Noise Reduction OFF
using the 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 lens
We find that the AF is very responsive and images
snap quickly into focus. The pop-up flash is used
as an AF Illuminator to aid in focusing, so pop
it up when it's dark and hard to obtain focus.
The strobed light from the flash is pretty strong,
so be careful not to blind your live subject(s).
Of course, if you do not intend to use flash,
set it to No Flash in the menu, and then you can
pop it up to simply function as an AF Illuminator.
The Olympus EVOLT E-300 allows you to save an
image in the RAW file format. It takes about 4
sec. to write a RAW image to memory card (I used
a regular SanDisk 1GB CF card) and if you select
to save your image in both RAW and SHQ JPEG, it
takes about 6 sec. to save both to memory card.
You can specify the JPEG image quality you wish
to save together with your RAW image. Note that
these times do not include the extra write times
you'll experience if Noise Reduction kicks in.
At SHQ, a 8MP image is compressed down to anywhere
between 5MB and 6MB. A RAW image takes about 14MB.
Since the LCD monitor does not receive a live
image feed from the image sensor (the mirror is
in the way), the Olympus EVOLT E-300 (and every
other dSLR for that matter) does not incorporate
a live histogram. In Playback mode, press the
Info button repeatedly to view the histogram or
highlights using the "Direct Histogram."
We find the overall image quality of the Olympus
EVOLT E-300 to be excellent with good details
in the shadows and highlights. There is a special
quality to the pictures that is hard to put into
words. Colours come out with a depth of tonality
that sets the images apart from "candy"
colours. See especially the pictures of the painter
and the tulip in the Photo Gallery to see exactly
what I mean.
The pictures in the Olympus EVOLT E-300 Photo
Gallery page provide a good sample of what
the camera is capable of. I have provided unprocessed
samples at 800x600 pixels (compressed to Quality
60/100 in Photoshop Elements) as well as the 3264x2448
pixels original size (click on the image for the
original version). Any of the 800x600 image that
is adjusted for levels and/or sharpened in Photoshop
has "_adjusted" appended to the file
name. Original images are never adjusted.
You can safely assume that most macro shots and
slow shutter speed shots required the use of a
tripod.
I have defaulted the image size to 800x600 pixels.
For those who have their monitor resolution set
to 1024x728 pixels, everything should snugly fit
and you should not have to scroll to see the whole
image. If your monitor is set to 800x600 pixels
resolution, start the slide show and then scroll
to the right to position the image within your
screen width. Then, press F11 (if you are using
Internet Explorer) to switch to full screen mode,
and the image should fill your screen nicely.
Press F11 again at any time to switch your monitor
display back to normal mode.
To return to this page from the Photo Gallery,
click on the animated graphics of the camera.
Please open and download the original size version
only if you need to and only once
to your hard drive -- and save me some precious
bandwidth. Thanks!
