Olympus E-620

Lens & Sensor

Shown below are three images taken with the kit 18-42mm lens at its widest and longest settings, plus one in-between the two.

Zoom Ratio Examples
14.0 mm	29.0 mm	42.0 mm

The Olympus E-620 uses a Four Thirds format Live MOS sensor, with approximately 13,060,000 total pixels and 12,300,000 effective pixels. The Four Thirds format was intentionally designed to be smaller than the APS-C format sensors found on most digital SLRs, to allow for more compact camera bodies, a concept proven out in the exceptionally portable E-620. There are trade-offs involved when you squeeze 12 million pixels into a smaller sensor, though, including the image noise problems we found in our lab testing. It also changes the apparent lens magnification factor. Ordinarily, when you mount a standard 35mm-style lens on an APS-C camera, it behaves like a lens with 1.5x or 1.6x the specified focal length — a 14-42mm lens would shoot roughly the way a 21-63mm lens would on a 35mm camera. On a Four Thirds format camera, the multiplier is 2x, so that same 14-42mm lens acts like a 28-84mm. You gain on the telephoto side, but lose out on the wide angle. At the same time, you’re not using the outer edges of the lens at all, which keeps distortion to a minimum.

The Super Sonic Wave Filter system vibrates briefly every time the camera is turned on to knock off dust and dirt.

Viewfinder (6.00)

The optical viewfinder provides a 95% field of view with 0.96x magnification. The diopter can be adjusted in the 03.0 – +1.0m-1 range. The eyecup is reasonably comfortable (there are interchangeable alternatives available if you disagree), though we did find that we had to move the camera around vertically to see both the full image area and the information display strip at the bottom.

One point to keep in mind when shooting with the viewfinder is that it always shows the full 4:3 aspect ratio, even if you’ve chosen to shoot in 16:9, 3:2 or 6:6 modes. The choice of aspect ratio is reflected on screen if you are shooting in Live View mode. In fact, there’s a custom setting that determines whether the aspect ratio setting applies to both viewfinder and Live View modes, or if it only controls Live View shooting and gets ignored when using the viewfinder.

Display(s) (6.90)

The size and resolution of the LCD are nothing special, at 2.7 inches and 230,000 dots, but the E-5620 screen has two major points in its favor. First, it uses the Olympus HyperCrystal III LCD technology, which lets some of the light hitting the surface of the screen pass through and bounce back to provide extra backlit illumination. It’s a winning approach to the problem of shooting in bright outdoor light, particularly if you’re a Live View fan. We still experienced some issues with glare on the screen when shooting in the sunshine, but the image was bright and the colors well saturated even under these challenging conditions.

And there’s a solution to the glare problem too, thanks to the second LCD highlight feature, an articulated screen. The screen attaches to the camera body on the left, with a bracket that lets the LCD swing out horizontally by 180 degrees and pivot vertically 270 degrees. This provides great positioning flexibility when shooting in Live View mode, with the camera held overhead, down low or off to the side. And while the screen can be placed flat against the back of the camera to use in the traditional position, it can also be flipped 180 degrees so the plastic back of the screen faces the cold, cruel world and the smudge-and-scratch-prone working side is facing inward, nicely protected.

LCD brightness and color temperature can each be adjusted in 15 steps. The last photo taken is displayed while making this adjustment, a much better practice than the flying-blind preview-less setting often found on digital cameras.

The articulated LCD offers freedom to shoot at unusual angles, and protection for the screen when not in use.

Secondary Display

As with most lower-cost digital SLRs, the E-620 doesn’t have the auxiliary top-mounted monochrome LCD found on higher-end cameras. The rear LCD information display basically makes up for this, though.

Connectivity (2.00)

There’s a single port for both USB and video output, oddly located on the back of the camera below the four-way controller. We don’t see a practical disadvantage in positioning the port here, though we would be happier if Olympus had used standard cables instead of proprietary connectors, which make it difficult to locate replacements or spares.