Olympus EVOLT E-300

Manual Control Options
The E-300 allows full manual control of aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and focus. Full manual control is pretty much mandatory on even inexpensive DSLRs like the E-300. The only distinctive element to the E-300’s handling of manual control is the clumsy aspects of the control interface – as often as not, the user must press a button to get access to the setting they want, and then operate the control dial to render alterations. Upon entering the second shooting subsection of the menu, users can manually adjust Saturation, Contrast, and Sharpness levels within a +/- 2 incremental range along a linear graph.

Focus
Auto (4.5)
This camera focused accurately when an autofocus sensor site was on the subject, but the E-300 contains only three autofocus sensor sites - and they’re bunched in the center of the frame. This results in both practical and competitive limitations for the E-300. The practical limitation is that it’s generally not desirable or convenient to center the subject in the frame, focus, and then recompose the image – which is the process the E-300 requires when the subject is off-center. Competitively, it’s a problem because many camera buyers will shop the E-300 against cameras that have a minimum of five or seven AF points spread across a wider area of the viewfinder, making those cameras easier to use.

The E-300 offers two autofocus modes: in single mode, the focus is locked when the shutter release is pressed halfway down, and stays at that focus until a picture is taken, or until the user lets the release back up; in continuous mode, the camera adjusts focus as long as the release is pressed halfway.

The autofocus was less effective in low light, but then again, all autofocus mechanisms are and this is no surprise; however, a few more AF points across the frame would have helped.

Manual (7.5)
The E-300 allows manual focusing via an actual manual focus mode, and by allowing some manual adjustments when the camera is in single autofocus mode. Manual focus is adjusted by rotating the focusing ring on whatever lens is attached. In an unusual design decision, Olympus allows the user to set the direction of rotation for focus – whether turning the ring clockwise focuses closer or further away.

Metering (7.0)
The E-300 offers three metering patterns. The Spot pattern measures light levels only at the center of the frame, in a small area corresponding to the autofocus sensor site in the middle of the viewfinder. The Average pattern measures a much larger central area which is not sharply defined, but becomes gradually less sensitive toward the edges of the frame.

The "Digital ESP" pattern is the Olympus take on matrix metering. Several areas of the frame are measured separately, and the camera uses an algorithm to balance the readings and determine the "proper" exposure. "Digital ESP" should recognize a backlit scene, for instance, and expose for a relatively dark central subject, rather than the brighter sky in the top corners of the frame.

"Digital ESP" performed much better than the "Average" pattern in more challenging lighting, but some scenes will still demand user intervention.

Exposure (9.0)
The E-300 offers a range of exposure modes, including Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program Auto, Manual, and scene modes. The E-300 also includes an exposure compensation setting in all its automatic modes, allowing the user to bias the exposure in a +/- 5-stop range in either half or third stops. This is a huge range, well beyond the common +/- 2-stop range offered by many consumer level cameras, though on par with most sub-$1,000 digital SLR models.

I found the camera’s exposures to be accurate when shooting evenly lit scenes. As is the case with competing cameras, the E-300’s exposure system is challenged by contrasting lighting and backlit scenes.

White Balance (8.5)
The E-300 offers eight white balance presets. Very usefully, Olympus labels each preset with both an icon such as a light bulb, and with a Kelvin temperature, the standard measure for color balance. They are: Tungsten 1, 3000K; Tungsten 2, 3600K; Fluorescent 1 4000K; Fluorescent 2, 4500K; Fluorescent 3, 6600K; Daylight, 5300K; Overcast, 6000K; Shade, 7500K.

The E-300 also has four custom white balance presets, which the user can set in the typical way, pointing the camera at a white surface and pressing a button. Straight from the factory, or after the camera is reset, the custom settings default to 2000K, 2500K, 8000K and 10,000K.

White balance can also be fine-tuned on the E-300. Starting from any white balance setting, the user can add red or blue values to the image. The increments between bumps are relatively fine: there are seven steps of adjustment between each preset.

ISO (6.5)
The E-300 offers a limited set of sensitivity ratings. ISO 100, 200 and 400 are available in normal mode, and an "ISO Boost" setting allows 800 and 1600 ratings to be selected. Though it’s typical for 800 and 1600 to be lower quality than the less-sensitive settings, "Boost" indicates that the E-300 suffers a dramatic drop-off in image quality, which proved true during testing.

It’s also unfortunate that the E-300 doesn’t offer finer increments in ISO, especially since digital cameras can be so finicky about exposure – sometimes an adjustment of one-third of a stop can make the difference between a good exposure and an unacceptable one,

The E-300 also offers an Auto setting for ISO, automatically adjusting the ISO based on light levels. In Auto, the camera operates on a 100-400 ISO range and cannot access the "boosted" ratings.

Shutter Speed (7.5)
The E-300 shutter speeds range from 30 seconds to 1/4000 of a second, plus a "Bulb" setting for long exposures of up to eight minutes. The non-Bulb speeds are adjustable in 1/3, 1/2 or 1-stop increments. Some competing cameras offer speeds as quick as 1/8000 of a second.

The shutter allows flash synchronization at up to 1/180 of a second, which is slow for this class of cameras. Many offer 1/250, and the Nikon D70 offers 1/500. Folks who are considering their first digital camera may not know how important high speed flash synch is in digital photography. Because of the limited dynamic range of most digital image sensors, most photographers rely on fill flash to lighten shadows when taking pictures in high contrast scenes, such as direct sunlight. To make the fill flash work, you need a pretty strong flash, a moderate aperture, and a fast shutter speed. 1/250 is just about mandatory, and 1/500 adds significant flexibility.

Aperture (6.0)
The E-300 is an interchangeable-lens camera with a Four-Thirds lens mount. Olympus and Sigma are producing Four-Thirds lenses over a broad range of maximum apertures, from f/2.0 for a non-zoom 50mm macro lens, to the kit lens, a 14-45mm zoom with a f/3.5 to f/5.6 maximum aperture. Olympus has also introduced a range of nine lenses in various focal lengths worthy of a professional system, from a 7-14mm f/4.0 zoom to a 300mm f/2.8, as well as a teleconverter and an extension tube.

Aperture is electronically controlled via the E-300’s camera body. Though f/3.5 is pretty open for a wide angle to telephoto zoom, f/5.6 is not. The kit lens won’t be adequate for indoor, available-light photography.

Olympus would also do well to produce a faster fixed-focal length lens for the EVOLT series. Although the 150mm f/2.0 lens is unusually fast, the 50mm f/2.0 is mediocre. Adding at least a couple of lenses with f/1.4 apertures, and an f/1.2, would add some low-light flexibility to the system, and help with the E-300's specific limitations in that area.