Olympus EVOLT E-300

Auto Mode (7.0)
In Program mode, which functions as the camera’s automatic mode, the camera will set both the aperture and shutter speed to optimize the exposure. In low light, the mode keeps the aperture wide open until it can set a shutter speed above 1/30 of a second with wide angle lenses, and faster with longer lenses. The user can override the camera’s selections; however, if the camera selects f/8 at 1/60, a turn of the jog dial will change the exposure to f/11 at 1/30, or f/5.6 at 1/125 – or any equivalent exposure.

An exposure compensation control is also available, enabling the user to bias the exposure lighter or darker in any of the auto modes.

Movie Mode (0.0)
Like nearly all DSLRs, the E-300 lacks a movie mode.

Drive / Burst Mode (6.25)
The E-300 allows continuous shooting at about 2.5 frames per second. That recording rate is slower than the EVOLT’s direct DSLR competitors and rivals many current compact and point-and-shoot models. At full resolution and high quality, it will only continue at that speed for four consecutive frames, which is inferior to other DSLRs.

2.5 frames per second is slow for professional applications such as pro sports and spot news, but it’s also slow for typical snapshooting occasions, such as blowing out candles on a birthday cake, bridal bouquet tosses, and wiffleball games. The lack of speed will directly hinder a significant range of shooting occasions and is generally disappointing for any DSLR.

Playback Mode (7.5)
The E-300 plays back recorded images on both the camera’s LCD screen and on television sets via the video out port. When the video out port is active, the camera’s LCD goes dark, and the television takes over its functions. It’s possible to navigate through the stored images via the controls on the camera back.

The camera has a slide show mode that shows images consecutively for five seconds each. The slide show can also show four, nine, or 16 images at once. The interval cannot be changed, and there aren’t any choices of transitions.

The Olympus E-300 also offers a limited set of in-camera editing functions. Since it does not have an orientation sensor (it can’t tell whether a given shot is a horizontal or vertical), the camera includes a manual option to rotate images – a useful inclusion for slide shows.

ORF images can also be edited in-camera. An ORF opened for editing will take on the color balance and sharpening options currently set on the camera, and can be saved as a new TIFF or JPEG. TIFFs and JPEGs can be saved as monochrome and at lower resolution as well.

Custom Image Presets (8.0)
Presets are collections of camera settings that users could set manually; however, they offer convenience and immediacy in calibrating the camera to a specific shot or scene with a single button. The E-300 has a substantial range of custom image presets for a digital SLR that snapshooters will find useful. They are: Landscape, which assumes distant subjects and emphasizes blue and green tones; Landscape/Portrait, which assumes that people are being photographed in front of a landscape, and keeps both in focus; Night Scene, which assumes a dark scene with point light sources, such as city lights, and requires a tripod or other support for the camera; Night+Portrait, which assumes people in front of a night scene, and combines a long exposure with red-eye reduction flash; Fireworks, which shuts off the flash, makes a long exposure, and requires manual focus; Sunset, which shuts off the flash, and boosts red and yellow tones; Portrait, which blurs the background; High Key, which keeps very light-toned subjects light, rather than gray; Macro, for extreme closeups, under available light; Documents, which boosts contrast and shuts off the flash; Museum, which shuts off the flash and all the beeps to keep the camera unobtrusive in quiet places; Sports, for catching fast-moving subjects; Beach & Snow, which captures skin tones in very bright surroundings; and Candle, which shuts off the flash and keeps the colors warm.

Although these preset options will help ease snapshooters into the SLR realm, the presets ascribed to the more challenging shooting situations ("Night Scene," "Fireworks" and "Document") will be much less useful. This is due to the inherent difficulty of those shooting situations which will generally require some experimentation by the user with a range of settings to attain the proper results. For instance, photographing documents often requires a contrast boost, but subtle changes in the boost will make significant changes in the final result.