Why not an E-volt?

[peter_white2]

I compared the Olympus offerings with Canon and Nikon when deciding what to buy a couple of months ago. This was before the Nikon D50 was available. The Canon had significantly lower high ISO noise than anything else in the 20D price range. There are other issues as well, but none that seemed all that important. The 20D was clearly the best camera out there at the time. If I were doing it again I would have to take a long hard look at the Nikon D50 though. But I just can't take the Olympus seriously, and I doubt that they will ever have as low noise as either Canon or Nikon.

 

For those times I want something small and light and I'm only shooting in broad daylight, I bought a Canon Pro 1. There's not much that the Olympus will do that the Pro 1 won't.

[daniel_kreithen1]

Well, Peter, it sounds like you made a good decision for yourself by buying the 20D, since high ISO noise was your overriding consideration. "Best" is a subjective term and depends on the individual. As to the issue of not taking Olympus seriously, I can't imagine you would say something like this having handled an E-1, unless you are simply prone to overstatement. To those who doubt it, I suggest handling one for yourself. It is the ONLY reasonably priced truly professional build quality body (meaning, bulletproof build, weathersealed, etc) that is currently on the market. True, the E-1 doesn't have blazing fast frame rate, which makes it neither fish nor fowl to those who insist that a pro camera must be able to do better than 3 fps or so. To get the same build quality in other brands, you must purchase a Nikon D2H or D2X or Canon 1D or 1Ds (mark IIs included) class camera. These are all, at current pricing, 4x more expensive, and all at significantly more weight. So perhaps you can't take Olympus seriously, but that statement flies in the face of objective reason.

 

Again, if high ISO noise is your absolute consideration, then buy a Canon. You'll be thrilled. I took a chance on buying an Olympus E-1 about 8 months ago, and was absolutely SHOCKED to find first-hand that the reams of commentary on the net all failed to mention that the E-1's noise is actually BETTER than film (I was comparing directly to Ilford's Delta film products) for equivalent ISO. That said, what I'd like to see from Olympus is one stop better either on the noise end or the max. aperture available in a reasonably sized lens. That's because I know that my worst-case "low-light scenario" in film land is/was f2 at 1/30, at 800 ISO. That is certainly going to happen this fall with the release of the f2 zooms (but I would prefer a smaller and less expensive semi-wide f2 prime in addition). I equally know that my "worst-case" scenario is a very small percentage of my shooting, so the Olympus product serves very well for the vast majority of my situations. We'll see what happens with the next Olympus pro body.

 

As to the Canon Pro 1 doing everything the Olympus does - again, I suspect you are prone to overstatement or over-generalization of what you need it to do and applying to to others' needs. Certainly you have a right to do so, but that sort of statement is not of tremendous utility to someone like Chris who is clearly trying to decide on his first DSLR.

[basscheffers]

Peter, the 20D body gives better results than an E-1 or E-300, no argument there. But then again, it is a more expensive camera and a MUCH more expensive camera once you put the lenses on it that actualy do the body justice. (minumum 17-40/4L, but that isn't long enough for me to be nice general purpose lens)

 

But the statement: "There's not much that the Olympus will do that the Pro 1 won't." is bollocks. I am not the greatest fan of Peter Askey's reviews, but one look at the DPReview.com gallery section for the E-1 (2nd gallery, the first were shit fotos on shit days, the 2nd is more the conditions the Pro 1 and E-300 shots were taken in), E-300 and Pro 1 makes it easy to see which is the best camera and which is the worst. One of those is the Pro 1 and that has a samples gallery full of soft images that lack any contrast, have sub-standard colour rendition. It also lacks any lattitude and it's noise is far worse than my E-1, only at ISO50 does it seem noise free and 200 is about as far as you can push it; the Pro 1's noise seems much more offensive then both the E-1 and E-300. Just as you'd expect from a camera in the Pro 1's class.

 

Top marks for owning one, though. I'd like to suplement my E-1 with something like an Oly 5060 or 7070, which would do no better than the Pro 1, but it would be on me at times that the E-1 is not. Sadly, I don't think that would be enough times to justify spending the money, so I haven't. (yet, there may yet come a moment of weakness)

[basscheffers]

Daniel, you may yet get your fast prime. Olympus have announced a "25mm macro" for this year, but not saying how fast it would be. The word "macro" makes me fear the worst that it could be an f/2, but I hope not. In any case it's probably a lens that will be on my wish list too.

[blueviews]

Daniel:

I am pretty sure that Olympus is bigger in than Nikon and both are much smaller as corporations than Canon. (I don't have 2004 data for Olympus but in 2003 they were about 10% bigger than Nikon was in 2004 and Canon was about 4x as big as Nikon in 2004). So smaller company isn't true. I think the real reason that Nikon/Canon are so prominent at least for the pros is that they have made a big effort to make their gear available for rent.

[godfrey]

The Oly E-300 is a good quality camera and the Olympus E system lenses are excellent. I

wasn't particularly fond of the E-300's control layout and also wanted more prime lenses

than Olympus currently offering. The smaller, lighter size of the Pentax *ist DS, its control

ergonomics, and the Pentax lens offerings appealed to me more.

 

Both are excellent performers. The Pentax will handle low light-high ISO shooting better,

but in the normal range from ISO 200-400 they both produce excellent photographs.

 

Godfrey

[basscheffers]

Bill, Daniel: I think Canon and Nikon sell more simply because they have had a well supported AF system for a long time, nothing more, nothing less. Olympus was a good size player in the OM days, but when others went AF, they didn't put in the effort, for whatever their reasons. They probably were stuck in their "small camera" ways and it simply isn't possible to make a pro AF camera that is small - certainly not in the 80s - so they just gave up? Just speculating. But suffice it to say, they blew it by missing a trend.

 

Olympus may be a bigger company than Nikon, but their photo division isn't. And I am sure other division's profit sponsors their photo department quite heavily; I'd be surprised if they made any money from four-thirds so far.

[peter_white2]

Daniel,

 

What I've ended up with is the 20D and the Pro 1. I'll rarely use the Pro 1 at anything higher than 100 ISO. So it's strictly a daytime shooter.

 

I've not used the Olympus. And my comments are based on the review at dpreview.com. The Olympus seems to have some sort of noise reduction going on at mid to high ISOs which makes for soft images. At ISO 400 for example, compared to the 20D, the noise looks about the same in the test. However the image is very soft.

 

Even at ISO 100 where the Olympus has quite low noise levels, it's still a softer image than the 20D's. So I have to ask what the point of the Olympus's great lenses is if the sensor is so soft?

 

That's why I say that I can't take the Olympus seriously. The fact that the 20D is more expensive is moot, since the 350XT is less expensive than the Olympus and has the same image quality as the 20D.

 

That the Olympus is well made I wouldn't dispute. They have always made high quality cameras and lenses.

[daniel_kreithen1]

Peter, thanks for qualifying your comments. I cannot speak with authority on the E-300, as mentioned above I've not used one. I have an E-1. However, I do know that the E-300 firmware has been updated since the Askey review. I don't know what changed in that firmware release, though. It is possible that the initial firmware had over-aggressive noise reduction applied, I simply do not know. I think the reputation of the Kodak sensors that Olympus used in the E-1 and E-300 having high noise is a function of design tradeoffs. I can make an arbitrarily low noise sensor at the expense of dynamic range - simply clip the shadows, then measure the standard deviation of a uniform image. I suspect that Canon does some of this, since to my eye the Canon CMOS sensors (of equivalent size) do not have the dynamic range and anti-bloom characteristics exhibited by the Kodak sensors. Coupled with the fact that noise levels are easy to standardize and measure, while dynamic range characteristics are difficult to measure, the various review sites and marketing literature from Canon tend to emphasize only one of the collection of specifications that shows Canon's products in a good light (after all this is Canon's marketing department's job). But if low noise is the most important thing to someone, then Canon is obviously the way to go. To those whose overriding consideration is something different, there are different choices to be made. For example, many medium format back manufacturers choose Kodak sensors, and many of them don't even offer ISO settings greater than 400. In a market clearly driven by overall image quality, I think that speaks directly to the quality that the sensors are capable of.

 

In answer to others who have pointed out that Nikon and Olympus are roughly equal in size...Nikon's main business is cameras and lithographic steppers, I believe. Olympus' main money-making products are medical devices (next time you need a colonoscopy, check on the brand of endoscope - it's probably an Olympus). I suspect that as a percentage of the corporation, Nikon's photo division far exceeds the size of Olympus'.

[basscheffers]

The E-1 _review_ (as opposed to the 2nd gallery) on DPReview is terribly outdated. Most of the problems it outlines have since been fixed and were never a problem when shooting RAW. This well known but Mr. Askey can't be bothered to update this.

<p>

I never experienced the E-1 as soft. In fact, I find it much sharper overall than most, if not all, Canon sensors. Including the DRebel I owned, so I know what I am comparing. Phil Askey also only reviews out of camera JPEGs at the default settings, while every E-1 JPEG shooter knows you have to put the sharpening a bit higher than that. This is not a bad reflection on the E-1 sensor per-se; Canon's CMOS sensor inherently need more noise reduction than a CCD (Canon are just really good at it) and require sharpening too. Their default setting is likely simply higher.

<p>

These are just some <a href="http://bas.scheffers.net/snaps/newforest2005/">family snapshots</a> but I wouldn't call any of them "soft", while very little sharpening is done. And while noisier than some may like, nobody can dispute the eye of the squirrel in my portfolio is pin sharp.

<p>

Simply repeating in a forum the findings of one reviewer doesn't make you an expert.

[andrew robertson]

I think it's funny that folks would compare Olympus getting completely out of the SLR

market and abandoning their product line with Canon changing mounts so they could

compete well in the future. Hell, Nikon has functionally changed mounts behind your back

with their G type lenses. So did Minolta. So did Pentax (M42 - K). Canon, at least, has

had incredible success with their EOS cameras, and truly dominates. The lens mount

technology is a key factor in their success.

 

My real concern is that they decided that they couldn't compete against AF cameras, so

Olympus just dropped their OM line. Who's to say, if their DSLR lineup doesn't make the

profits they desire, that they won't drop it too? Olympus could have saved a lot of face

and customers by continuing to produce small batches of OM cameras and lenses.

[andrew robertson]

BTW, the E-300 review shows the sensor has the same weaknesses as the E-1. The noise is

more pronounced at higher ISOs, and is really a lot worse than it looks. Bringing up

shadows with the E cameras is an ugly proposition.

[daniel_kreithen1]

"and is really a lot worse than it looks."

 

This reminds me of a famous quote of George Bernard Shaw, who was a music critic writing for a major London newspaper at the time. It was something along the lines of "Wagner's music is really much better than it sounds."

 

But I suspect in this case that you were being unintentionally funny.

[basscheffers]

"Bringing up shadows with the E cameras is an ugly proposition" Really, Andrew? I can only assume that you are refering to DPReviews incredibly underexposed street scene where he tries to make somthing out of the shadows? Have you ever noticed how that "test" is never done on any other cameras he reviews? Have you ever tried that on your camera? If shadows are that under exposed, they are lost on any camera.

 

I regularly bring up reasonable shadows on images, without problems.

[chrisdurnin]

Wow, is it getting hot in here? Thanks for all the replies guys. I kind of think it's funny though when people don't even answer the question at hand and then start to tear down other people's gear.

 

Someone said "I have a 20D..blah, blah...the Rebel is (less?) same price as the olympus..." uhhhh, NOT. six hundred dollars (cost of evolt plus lens) compared to about a G IS NOT LESS THAN OR EQUAL THE SAME COST! its almost double(I'm a full time out-of-pocket student...400 hundred dollars camera kit difference is a lot of money). And on dpreview it even stated that comparing the evolt to the 20D was merely for kicks, since they 20D is way more expensive and should far out run the O.

 

I mainly shoot medium format film...(which a 20D can't touch by the way...oh and I paid less than 5 hundred for my medium format kit)...and I just want a cheap DSLR to start to get into the DSLR scene...and to blow a whole bunch of costless images to play with in photoshop.

 

From what I read, the evolt seems like a good camera to start this with. I really do like the 20D, but I'm not paying that much right now and I'm not going to "wait for it", as I really need to work on my CS2 skills and want a DSLR to help with that process.

 

Thanks for the help guys.

 

-Chris

[._._z]

<i><blockquote> http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/olympus/e300-review/

index.shtml <p>

 

Overall, the E-300's image quality was very good, though not quite as good as I would

expect from a D-SLR, at least at its default settings. Photos were generally well-

exposed, with accurate color and low levels of noise and purple fringing. At the same

time, they seemed somewhat soft, with details seeming "muddy" at times.... <p>

 

The kit lens is good for the most part, though I was surprised to see some vignetting

show up. The camera is quite well built for the price, though it isn't as easy to grip as

the competition (my opinion, yours may differ). The EVOLT only supports the old, slow

USB 1.1, which is a shame considering the size of these images. <p>

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse300/page22.asp <p>

 

The color response between the two cameras is similar expect for the EOS 300D's paler

blues and the E-300's slightly orange reds. The E-300's resolution advantage is quite

clear, it has some 400 more vertical pixels (about 20%) than the EOS 300D and is hence

able to resolve more detail in various areas of the image. That said the EOS 300D

appears to demonstrate better per-pixel sharpness, there's a crispness to its image

which isn't matched in the E-300 image, you almost get the feeling that there could

perhaps be more detail than there is.

 

</blockquote> </i><p>

[daniel_kreithen1]

Chris, an entirely rational response to a sometimes irrational interchange. Good luck no matter what you decide. And, you're right, medium format right now is untouchable for quality vs. cost (with equipment bought used, of course).

[andrew robertson]

I often bring shadows up with my R-D1 and 10D. Sometimes four stops! So, perhaps this

test isn't valid if one doesn't do that kind of thing, but for me it's critical.

 

I often shoot them both at ISO 6400 or more (the R-D1 frequently at effective 25600), and

while it's not pretty in color it beats the hell out of pushing 3200P three stops. So, for my

style of shooting decent performance from a sorely undersaturated sensor is critical.

[jorgen_udvang]

The 4/3 system works very well, the owners seem to be happy, and the photos turn out great. What more can you wish for? It's a bargain and it has dust removal. Why don't I have one myself? Hmmm... good question. I like my Fuji S3, and can't afford two systems.... yet.

[todd frederick]

I own and use Olympus C-5050, E-10, E-1, and E-300 and I use them for paid venues (weddings, etc.) with no regrets and excellent performance.

 

Buy and use what you want and what works for you. That's what I do.

 

All of this picky-dumping is insane.

[ken_j1]

Here you can find 13 reviews that were written on the E-volt, http://www.viewscore.com/vsPP/3/1688 .

 

It gets good scores from the reviewers, but as you can see in the relative ranking chart on the right, it's ranked 15 in it's group, and this is by the professionals opinions.

 

Hope that helps.

[basscheffers]

That's funny, Ken! :) Did you move up the list to see what else is there? There seems to be no distinction between class of camera and the 350D is actualy a better camera than the 1Ds mkII!

 

So it's not 15th in it's group, unless you consider it to be in the same group as the 20D, 1Ds, D2X and cameras like it.

 

Just read the reviews and make up your own mind, as anyone should. Take this "15th best" ranking with a pinch of salt.

[ken_j1]

I'm not a pro... and I understand that even inside the DSLR group there are sub groups, well, I accept the correction... I believe you can add a price limit over there and then see a more correct result, anyway, the score of the E-volt is high and no doubt that it's a good camera.

 

Ken.

[markku_ylilammi]

It seems that nobody has pinpointed the fundamental flaw in the Olympus E-series.

 

In the 4/3-standard the sensor size is fixed. Other companies (most notably Canon) is rapidly increasing the sensor size. This improves the noise performance and thus allows building more (and smaller) pixel elements. Normal EOS EF lenses are fully compatible with this development. In the Olympus DSLR the lenses do not allow to increase the sensor size.

 

This has two consequences: first, the E-series cameras become rapidly outdated, and secondly, Olympus will soon loose interest in this standard and stop producing 4/3 gear. They have a bad reputation in this respect. Thus 4/3 DSLR's make an investment without any future.

[daniel_kreithen1]

This is beginning to be tiresome. So by that logic, the "fundamental flaw" of 35mm cameras is that they use only a 24mm x 36mm frame size of film. Clearly, medium format, or better yet, large format (16 x 20, anyone?) is less flawed than 35mm.

 

I find that the Olympus E system is extremely well thought out to essentially duplicate (and in some specifications surpass) the performance of 35mm film. There is some way to go for that in terms of dynamic range, but that is the case for all the brands we've been discussing. Current medium format digital backs do exceed the dynamic range of film, however. There are technologies out there (not yet cost effective, granted) that might very well tip the balance to modest sensor sizes. There are more ways to skin a cat than the sledgehammer approach of more silicon surface area. If you doubt this, go to Google and type in "mems", then start reading. Then imagine a mems device which acts as a shutter for each pixel, timed independently...and start considering the possibilities and engineering tradeoffs inherent in a design which might use that technology. And this is only one example of an enabling technology that I happen to be aware of.

 

Next, the E system will not be "rapidly outdated", unless as you say, Olympus pulls the plug. I don't think that's likely in the near term (say within 5 years) because the process of thinking the E system design through should have made clear to Olympus engineering that the maturation process would take longer than that. And, Panasonic is joining the mix in the near future, which ought to give the 4/3 standard a shot in the arm. OK, this last bit is still in the rumor category, but what is certain is that Olympus and Panasonic are teaming to produce a DSLR. So frankly, the bald and unsupported assertion that the 4/3 system has no future is absolutely unfounded. Remember, we're only at the beginning of what mass-market digital imaging will be capable of.

 

Chris, that reminds me...if you do decide to go for the E-300, call Olympus and ask if they still are giving away (for free!) an E to OM adapter ring. If they send you one, then you can use older OM glass on the E body (no auto-focus, manually stopped down). Some of the OM glass is quite good and cheap, used.