Usual Estonian "winter" only offered grey skies and pretty bad weather so most of the shooting was done indoors, I was pressed for large apertures and high ISO-s. I spent 2 days shooting indoors skate and BMX contest Pop Session and that really pushed this camera to it's limits. I'm too lazy to put images here so please check them in my original Estonian review.
Both lenses I had belong to the cheap end but feel very solid and well-built. Only element I was not so impressed with was manual focus ring that has to be turned a lot to move focus and because its focus-by-wire, does not feel so responsive as real mechanical lenses. Then again - it's possible to change the direction of manual focus ring. I suggest you leave manual focus to only macro shooting. Especially when trying to get focus right in darker conditions it's not very practical as viewfinder is not the brightest around. It probably get's better when using faster lenses.
About body and ergonomics
I really liked that Olympus E-300 / Evolt presents all most important options on the back of the body. Flash mode, ISO, white balance, picture quality, exposure compensation, focus mode and exposure mode selection all have their own buttons. Press it and then use thumbwheel to switch between options, very handy.
Even though camera has very brick-like shape it sits well in ones hand. Grip has rubbery cover, thumb area has the same cover so there's no danger of E-300 slipping out of your hand. Perosnally I'd wish for a slighly larger grip, there's somewhat strange higher line on the grip to help compensate that I think. Weight is good - strolling around whole day holding camera and flash does not leave you with a strained shoulder and tired hand.
As I already said the viewfinder is not the brightest, because of small sensor it's smaller than those of film cameras but after two days you get used to it. Viewfinder shows approximately 94% of whole frame.
OK button seemed out of place at first. On all other cameras (that I remember) it's been situated in the middle of navigation ("arrow") buttons, on E-300 it sits below and to the right of navigation buttons. Your thumb has to move more but again, it's only matter of getting used to. On the plus side you can choose which option to set to the OK button. Options are - depth of field preview, switching between autofocus and manual focus, manual white balance, setting sharpness, saturation etc.
E-300 has only one dial that you operate with your thumb so your index finger only has the job of pressing the shutter.
Maybe it's my hands but AEL and focus point selection buttons are in the wrong place. I kept hitting button that opens pop-up flash and this button is situated way to the left. Unfortunately it's not very convenient to use those two buttons, your thumb is forced to uncomfortable position.
If you want an overview of all buttons and knobs and menus etc then check out very thorough review by dpreview.com.
Focusing and shooting
Focusing speed is average, nothing spectacular with kit lens. Olympus E-300 struggles with objects coming at the camera and objects with low contrast. Because manual focus is cumbersome (switching it on requires pressinga button and turning a dial) so this is not very practical choice as well. Better try to find something with good contrast. When shooting sports I switched to continuous autofocus and that gave better results. But shooting extreme sports indoors is really very demanding for this camera.
Focusing is on the quiet side, maybe not as quiet as with Nikon D70 kit lens but still good. Mirror slap is also very acceptable so good points here.
On the first day of using E-300 I constantly had the feeling that many images are overexposed so for most shooting I had -0.3 or even -0.7 exposure comensation dialed in. Somewhat to my surprise dpreview.com found that their E-300 tended to underexpose, especially if there was bright lightsource in the frame. After checking thoroughly checking images in my computer screen I decided that my E-300 did sometimes overexposu, mostly when I was shooting in dim conditions as if camera decided to help me get better lit images. But when shooting outside exposure was pretty good. Whitebalance is OK, does struggle sometimes.
About shooting speed
If you plan to shoot a lot of sports and want high quality then collect more money and get something else. 2.5 frames per second is not enough for fast moving subjects if you want to shoot continuously. And with highest quality JPG you can only keep this speed up for 4 frames. Then you have to wait for the camera, lift your finger and press the shutter again. If you switch to "High quality" then I managed to shoot 50 frames continuosly and probably would have been able to fill whole card (SanDisk 35x 1Gb) holding the shutter.
About picture quality
I'll borrow something from our local photomag Cheese that put Olympus E-300 side-by-side with 5 megapixel Olympus E-1 that is directed to professional shooters. When E-1 picture was upsized to match that of E-300 there was really no difference. So higher pixel count might not bring you a quality leap.
What do I think? Overall good quality. Perhaps images are a little soft straight out of the camera but you can turn up incamera sharpening or do it later in Photoshop or whatever software you're using. My soft images can be blamed for large aperture that I was using most of the time and 14-45mm kit lens probably cannot compete with more expensive lenses.
Olympus E-300 by default allows you to use ISO 100, 200 and 400. From the menu you can extend this to 800 and 1600 but this is achieved by software so a big drop-off in quality. While ISO 800 is still usable I cannot advice ISO 1600, it looks perfectly horrible.
Red stripes on the pictures. WHAT?
After a long day shooting sports I went home and discovered something very strange. On images shot at the end of the day there are visible red stripes in darker areas. It's better seen on high ISO images but is also present at ISO 200 images. Wrote to Olympus Estonia about the matter and they got back really fast with an explanation. Turns out that at least some cameras from the early production patch are affected by this problem. Apparently Olympus will take these cameras back and replace with a good one. If you do discover red stripes on your images then contact your local Olympus dealer and ask for a replacement. If you cannot see the stripes on this image here then your screen is not very accurately calibrated.
Here's how you can check your camera: turn it to ISO 1600 and shoot something in a dim room. According to Olympus it does not matter how long your camera has been on. Strong stripes consisting mainly of red "noise" should be visible.
About battery life
I never did manage to kill my battery even though I shot around 500 images a day, tinkered a lot with the display and also used pop-up flash (you can use pop-up flash together with external flash, cool). In the evening battery was still in the green. Next day shooting in around 0 degree Celcius I got the battery to go to red but then I had to give camera back. So batter puts up very good performance.
Pop-up flash and FL-36
Camera flash was surprisingly good, whole scene is well lit and at least indoors it works pretty far. On the downside - you have to open flash yourself, there's always the chance that you forget and then your once in a liftime photo oportunity is gone. Pop-up flash is also used for focusing assistance so forget about sneaky shooting, you'll blind everyone with your stroboscope :) It's possible to set flash compensation when you want your flash a little more subtle.
Olympus FL-36 flash gave very good results, with full batteries (it takes 2 AA-s) recycle times were very fast. If you plan to use lots of flash and fast recycle times are required then keep extra batteries in your pocket, FL-36 eats lots of them.
What really bugged me was one physical aspect of FL-36 flashgun. In it's bottom leftside corder there's dial for setting different options in flash menu. This dial has pretty sharp jagged edge for easier turning. However, when you hold camera up this sharp edge strikes you right in the middle of your forehead. After a day of shooting with flash I sported small aching red spot on my forehead. Strange engineering from Olympus.
Display and viewing images
1.8 inch screen feels smallish when you've used some 2+ inch screens but of course it's enough to check focus, information etc. Olympus offers pletoria of viewing options, from only picture to histogram and small picture plus all information about picture next to it.
I really liked the approach Olympus has taken to zooming in to the picture. You zoom in in steps but zoom out with only one step. I like this logic and wish more manufacturers adopted it.
Conclusion
Writing these reviews is always difficult. You can actually like the camera a lot but still find many things that bug you. I did like E-300. It's not perfect camera and it lacks in some areas (autofocus speed was sometimes an issue) but for this price I think it's a very good camera. So if you're looking for your first digital SLR I suggest you certainly give E-300 / Evolt a try. If you've already made up your mind then get it from Amazon for $999.95.
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