Olympus E-100RS First Look

NOTE: This is a First Look article to be replaced by a full review.

About the same time we heard of the E-10 Olympus also revealed their unique E-100RS. With the same big 10x stablised optical zoom lens seen on the C-2100UZ, the E-100RS is capable of shooting at 15 frames per second. No misprint, 15 frames per second. However, that speed comes with a price, it has a 1.5 megapixel CCD. That delivers 1360 x 1024 images, sufficient for web publishing, small prints, small newspaper work (even). Just like the E-10 it supports SmartMedia and CompactFlash Type II, the back-end of th E-100RS looks just like a C-3030Z to me.

Think about who Olympus are aiming this camera at, it's perfect for the amatuer sports photographer who shoots for the web, for wildlife photography and even events shots.

At Photokina last week we got our first real hands on with the E-10, and I have to say it's an impressive piece of kit in your hand. We have since then received both E-10 and E-100RS pre-production cameras (the same ones which appeared at Photokina) to post this first look.

For full camera specifications click here

DISCLAIMER: Olympus wish us to make it very clear that this camera is an early pre-production model, as such detailed critique of image quality / operational speed / bugs won't be covered in this article, although we will publish some samples they should be taken with a grain of salt as we often find large improvements in image quality for the final production cameras. This is a first look preview at the camera, it's not a review.

Design / Operation Overview

Clad in a cool black "ruggedised" case, the whole of the handgrip is coated in a thick rubber, as is the snout of the lens. In your hand it feels like camera which means business and would survive the odd drop or two, there's not even a hint of flex or creak from the excellently built body.. The hand grip is lovely too, not quite as nice as the E-10 but not far off. A true "tool of the trade".

From the back it looks suspiciously like a C-3030Z, but then the big viewfinder rubber breaks the mould (inside you'll find a 0.556" LCD) the big storage compartment door hides SmartMedia and CompactFlash Type II card slots (and guess what, my Microdrive worked perfectly in it.. *shrug*). The rubber grip around the lens barrel does nothing but offer a strong grip point / protection.

The Lens

Another piece of excellent glass from Olympus, the equivalent to a 38 - 380 mm F2.8 - F3.5 Zoom Lens with image stablisation (which only kicks in when you half-press the shutter release, and you can disable it). Cut in half at the top of this image is the small red focus assist light, something new to Olympus digital cameras.. and it works really well, it's amazingly powerful I found it to work on subjects even several meters away..

Rear / Top Controls

Simple enough control layout, everything you'd need is at hand, there are buttons for macro focus, metering, drive, flash mode, manual focus and AE-lock all on the body (I'm a fan of leaving the controls on the outside of the camera and not burying them away in menu systems). Something new to the E-100RS is the power switch, it features three positions, OFF, ON and RESET (the last being spring loaded), pushing to RESET returns camera settings to either a predefined set of parameters or factory defaults.