Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - Here's what I receive
in the box:
EVOLT E-300 dSLR
14-45mm F3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital Lens w/lens
shade
Shoulder Strap
Li-Ion Battery, Charger & Power Cord
Interface Cables: A/V; USB
Instruction Manuals: Advanced Manual; Quick
Start Guide, System Chart
Software CDs: Olympus Master 1.1
In addition, I also receive in this review package:
40-150mm F3.5-4.5 Zuiko Digital Lens w/lens
shade
Electronic Flash FL-36
Unpack the Olympus EVOLT E-300, and you
wonder if you are looking at a digital SLR since
the pentaprism hump is missing. Pick it up and
peer thru the optical viewfinder and you immediately
realize you are in pro territory.
Even though the Olympus EVOLT E-300 is quite
large and heavy by prosumer digital camera standards,
it handles very comfortably. The index finger
naturally rests on the shutter release button
and there is no fumbling for the controls. Press
a control button and rotate the Control Dial with
your thumb for fast settings change.
In my review kit, besides the camera, I also
receive the 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 Zuiko Digital Lens,
the 40-150mm F3.5-4.5 Zuiko Digital Lens, and
the Electronic Flash FL-36. Due to the 2x crop
factor, the lenses provide a combined 35mm equivalent
focal length of 28-300mm 10x optical zoom. The
FL-36 electronic flash is fully integrated with
the exposure and zoom system of the camera, and
its rotating head allows bounced lighting for
natural light effects.
Image quality is excellent with good detail and
very low noise at ISO 100 and ISO 200. I am a
bit disappointed with the presence of noise at
ISO 400 (as very faint colour speckles), and the
very noisy ISO 800 and ISO 1600. Certainly, one
of the major reason for moving from a prosumer
model to a dSLR is to take advantage of the low
noise characteristics of the large image sensors
in the dSLRs. There is certainly room for improvement
on the 4/3 System image sensor.
One major problem with using interchangeable
lenses is that taking them on and off allows dust
to enter the camera body and deposit on the image
sensor. These specks of dust result in black dots
on your images. Cleaning the image sensor periodically
of this dust is a chore akin to picking lint from
your belly button -- i.e. not something a photographer
looks forward to doing IF he or she knows how
to do it properly without damaging the image sensor
in the first place. Well, not to worry, the Olympus
EVOLT E-300 has an Ultrasonic Dust Reduction System
that shakes the image sensor free of dust everytime
you power on the camera. The dust specks accumulate
on a sticky film at the bottom. No mention is
made in the manual of how to replace that sticky
film; I guess you may need to send the camera
in from time to time. Kudos to Olympus for innovating
with this dust reduction technology.
The Olympus EVOLT E-300 uses a Compact Flash
(CF) memory card. With images averaging between
5-6MB in size, I recommend you purchase a 1GB
CF card (1GB holds approx. 159 SHQ images).
With Windows XP, you don't need to install any
software to transfer images from camera to PC.
Just plug the USB cable into your camera and PC
USB socket, switch on the camera, and press OK
to select "PC". The camera is recognized
as a drive, and you just use the supplied Olympus
Master 1.1 software to transfer images to your
PC (if you want to use it to index your images
by date). If you don't care with indexing your
images, you can simply use Windows Explorer to
drag and drop the images from the camera to anywhere
on your hard drive. Before unplugging the USB
cable, you need to click the "Unplug or Eject
Hardware" icon on the taskbar first.
What do you know, but Olympus has included a
printed Advanced Manual in the
box! (At least in my review kit for Canada. For
those who don't know, the Advanced Manual is usually
only available on CD.) And it's one of the best
manual we've ever read. It's well-organized, with
every item of interest indexed and quickly found.
Note that the chart depicting the camera and its
parts (easily the most consulted page, especially
at first) is buried at the back of the manual.
The
EVOLT E-300 has superb handling
32mm (64mm), Program, ESP, 1/4 sec., F4.7, and
ISO 100
If you are used only to consumer digital cameras,
you will miss a few things when you upgrade to
a dSLR. For example, there is no live view on
the LCD monitor -- it's strictly for Playback.
For macro work, there is no swiveling LCD monitor,
so you have to crouch down to your subject level
peering thru the viewfinder. But what you gain
is tremendous: you have a relatively large and
clear optical viewfinder with no refresh rate
problem; the AF is instant, and there is no practical
shutter/AF lag; zooming is smooth, responsive
and precise, and as fast as you want to turn that
zoom ring; interchangeable lenses come in many
focal length ranges, and though they do tend to
be pricey, Olympus has provided two which are
affordable and together cover a 28-300mm (35mm
equivalent) range that will satisfy most of us;
the possibility to use an external flash that
is tightly integrated to the exposure and zoom
system of the camera means that you can now take
properly exposed images outdoors and indoors.
The Olympus EVOLT E-300 also accepts many of the
same accessories created for the higher-end professional
Olympus E-1.
Olympus Electronic Flash FL-36
A camera's onboard flash is generally good enough
to light one subject at portrait's distance. But
to light up a whole group of your friends or to
reach a bit further into the telephoto end of
your lens, you need something a bit more powerful.
And that is where a powerful external flash comes
in handy.
The FL-36 is relatively compact, being smaller
in real life than pictures usually depict it.
It is lightweight and comes with a pouch where
you can safely store it in when it is not in use
mounted on top of the camera.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that it accepts
only 2 AA batteries and still provides excellent
charging and flashing performance. Approximate
recharge times supplied by Olympus are:
Approximate Recharge Times
Battery Type
Seconds to Recharge
# Flashes
AA Alkaline
7.5
140
AA Ni-Cd
6.5
100
AA Ni-Mh
5.5
200
AA Oxyride
6.5
140
AA Lithium
7.5
260
CR-V3 Lithium
6.5
320
If you have been frustrated using an external
flash before, you're in for a pleasant surprise.
It's really easy to use the FL-36 with the EVOLT
E-300. Slip it into the hot shoe of the camera,
tighten the lock ring and you're good to go --
literally. Turn on the camera, turn on the flash,
and it starts to charge up. Turn off the camera,
and the flash goes into sleep mode, ready to awake
as soon as you turn on the camera (no need to
turn on the flash again).
The camera communicates exposure and focal length
information to the flash. Tap the shutter release
button slightly to start this communication. Change
any exposure setting, including ISO speed, shutter
speed and aperture, and the flash knows and adjusts
its light output accordingly.
The flash head can be zoomed (it's all internal)
from the equivalent of a 24-85mm, and there is
a built-in wide-angle diffuser panel that you
pull out and over the flash head to provide even
illumination with wide angle lenses less than
24mm focal length. The zooming is all automatic:
as you zoom the lens, the flash head also zooms
in tandem.
You can also override any of the flash settings
by switching the flash to Manual mode. Light intensity
can be adjusted from -3EV to +3EV in 1/8th EV
steps. This is important because the flash output
can be really intense. I tested the flash at night
in my office, and my son (two bedrooms down and
talking himself to sleep) wondered if it was lightning
that just flashed light across his darkened room.
One of the major reason you want to use an external
flash is to be able to bounce the light (say from
the ceiling) to create different light effects,
for example to simulate natural daylight and to
avoid harsh shadows. For this to be possible,
you need a flash head that can be rotated up and
down. The head of the FL-36 can be rotated to
point straight up to the ceiling and all the way
90° down to point straight at your subject,
plus a further 7° down for close-ups
(recommended flash range for close-up is 0.5 to
1.0 m). It can also rotate 90° clockwise and
180° anticlockwise. This effectively allows
you incredible flexibility in how you wish to
bounce the light to create the type of lighting
you want.
Another advantage of using the flash in low-light
is that it has an AF Illuminator that throws a
red beam at your subject to help achieve focus
lock. This is much better than blinding your subject
with the strobe of the onboard pop-up flash.
As the above picture of the camera with the FL-36
flash mounted shows, the Olympus EVOLT E-300's
onboard pop-up flash can be used simultaneously
with the FL-36, thus allowing advanced lighting
setups. For example, while the pop-up flash illuminates
your subject straight on, the FL-36 can counter
the effect of harsh shadows by bouncing its light
from the ceiling. As far as White Balance is concerned,
set it to AUTO for best results using any flash.
The Olympus FL-36 costs about US $200 and if
you take lots of indoors pictures in low-light,
I recommend that you add this flash to your accessories
(though the onboard pop-up flash is very good,
too).
I find that the Olympus EVOLT E-300 is
well-designed and works naturally in my hands.
No frustration or long learning curve here, with
everything working pretty intuitively. If you
are coming from the prosumer world and thinking
of moving up to a dSLR, the Olympus EVOLT E-300
with its 2 digital lenses and Electronic Flash
FL-36 provides a complete system at a very reasonable
price. I've taken the most pictures to-date with
a review camera (500+) and thouroughly enjoyed
using it. Image quality is excellent, the only
caveat being that the low-noise characteristics
of the image sensor is not as great as I expected.
Keep that in mind as you select your dSLR, and
if you rarely intend to push past ISO 400, then
you definitely need to get your hands on an Olympus
EVOLT E-300 to try it out. You might find it hard
to put it down once you pick it up.
