Olympus E-300 EVOLT Review, January 2005, Phil Askey

Review based on a production E-300

The E-300 ('EVOLT' in North America) became the second ever Four Thirds System digital SLR when it was announced by Olympus at Photokina 2004. The camera features an eight megapixel Kodak 4/3 Type CCD sensor, a Four Thirds lens mount and an unusual Optical Porro Finder. The viewfinder uses four mirrors instead of a prism, its sideways swinging mirror lends to the camera's flat-top profile. Instead of the image from the lens being directed upwards to the viewfinder prism it is directed rightwards and then up to the viewfinder which is offset from the lens axis.

Two new affordable ZUIKO Digital lenses

In conjunction with their announcement of the E-300 Olympus also announced two more affordable (sub $300) lenses. The EZ 14 - 45 mm zoom was destined to be the E-300 'Kit Lens' while the EZ 40 - 150 mm adds a telephoto zoom option. These two lenses would provide an E-300 owner with a full 28 - 300 mm equiv. FOV coverage (or approximately 10x zoom from 28 mm equiv.). It's worth noting however that the more expensive ZUIKO Digital lenses feature ED glass elements, these do not. However the price difference is significant, the ED 14 - 54 mm F2.8 - F3.5 being approximately twice the price of the EZ 14 - 45 mm.

ZUIKO Digital EZ 14 - 45 mm F3.5 - F5.6 (28 - 90 mm equiv. FOV, 3.2x zoom) US$ 249.95	ZUIKO Digital EZ 40 - 150 mm F3.5 - F4.5 (80 - 300 mm equiv. FOV, 3.75x zoom) US$ 279.95

If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help you understand some of the terms used).

Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the reviewer, you should read the ENTIRE review before coming to your own conclusions. Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (typically VGA) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C.

This article is Copyright 2005 Phil Askey and the review in part or in whole may NOT be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author. For information on reproducing any part of this review (or any images) please contact: Phil Askey