Olympus E-30

Noise Reduction (5.54)

With noise reduction turned off, the noise levels rapidly increase to 5% at ISO 3200. Even at ISO 400, it sits at slightly above 1.5%, which is noticeable in the images at full size. Turning on noise reduction does noticeably drop the noise levels, but at the cost of image sharpness. For an example of how this will affect your images, our Sample Photos section includes shots taken at various ISOs.

Noise is spread across colors and gray (luma). While all of these areas are unusually high, luma is a particular culprit, and breaches 6% noise at ISO 3200. More on how we test noise.

The miserable performance in the noise section of our review is a distinguishing feature of this camera, unfortunately. It’s small sensor size and reasonably high megapixel count combined to produce a decidedly sub-par result. To test noise levels, we shoot the X-Rite color chart at every available ISO, at all noise reduction levels, and use Imatest to measure the levels of noise across red, green, blue, yellow and luma. The score for this section is based on its performance across all noise reduction levels. According to Olympus, if you use Live View for extended periods, you may hit even higher noise levels than we found, due to the sensor heating up from repeated use. All of these tests were shot using the viewfinder only.

Normally, when we run this test, we turn any sort of dynamic range adjustment off. With the Olympus E-30, this feature is called Gradation, and cannot be switched off, but rather is set to Normal, Auto, High Key and Low Key. Our tests were run initially with Gradation set to Auto, but we subsequently learned that this setting can noticeably increase noise levels. We have since re-shot these tests with Gradation set to Normal, and adjusted our scoring accordingly. However, even with Gradation set to Normal, the noise levels of the E-30 are still problematically high with noise reduction off. With noise reduction on they are now at more acceptable levels, if you don’t mind taking a significant hit to image sharpness.

When compared to other cameras, even inexpensive entry-level SLRs, we saw just how atypical these noise levels are. At ISO 400, the E-30 has similar levels to most cameras do at ISO 1600.

However, if you turn the noise reduction up all the way to full, the E-30 relocates to the center of the pack, with noise levels that are more or less on par with other cameras, except at the extremes of ISO 3200. The only problem with this is that the images suffer significant loss of sharpness with the image reduction turned up all the way, so it becomes a balancing act between the two, depending on your needs and situation.

The E-30’s small sensor once again betrays it, as it struggled to jam twelve million pixels into not enough space, resulting in a noise score far below any of the other tested cameras. The noise level at ISO 3200 is so high as to render images unrecognizable, which can be mitigated to a certain extent by using noise reduction, which in turn damages sharpness in major ways.

ISO Options

Below you can see 100% crops for each of the cameras at every available ISO. The E-30 runs the gamut of ISO 100 to 3200, in 1/3 or 1 EV. The camera features ISO bracketing for three shots, in ±0.3, 0.7 or step.

ISO Comparisons
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO Low
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 100	ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 100	ISO 100	ISO 100
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 200
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 400
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 800
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 1600
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 3200
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 6400
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000
ISO 12800
Olympus E-30	Nikon D90	Canon EOS 50D	Canon EOS Rebel XS	Pentax K2000

NOTE: The images above are not used in our testing or scoring, but are included here to show real-world examples of the differences between cameras at the various ISO settings.