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Olympus E-30 is a midrange digital SLR shooting 12 megapixel photos and using Four Thirds sensor which allows for large zooms, great sharpness and great image stabilization.

Overview:

Olympus E-30 as a very high built quality, wide array of configurable controls and predefined scene modes. Moreover, the Olympus E-30 is very well balanced which makes it easy to carry and shoot at unusual angles and fast continuous mode. The Four Thirds in combination with the 2x crop factor may assure great image quality. But what is the actual Olympus E-30 performance? Read on to find out.

Olympus E-30 pros:
+ Very good built quality
+ Good playback mode
+ Very sharp images
+ Articulated LCD with Live Mode
+ Viewfinder with 98% field of view
+ 2.7″ and 230,000 pixels LCD screen

Olympus E-30 cons:
- Poor noise
- Proprietary USB port
- Awkward rear dial placement
- Complicated menu system

The design:

Olympus E-30 measures 141.5 x 107.5 x 75 mm and weighs 655 grams (body only). The front of this well balanced and solidly built Olympus camera features mainly the lens mount, but also white balance sensor, control dial, remote control receiver, depth of field preview button, lens release button and external flash connector. If you think that the front of Olympus E-30 is crammed with buttons you might b shocked by the back. The rear of the Olympus camera features AF button, metering control, second control dial, on/off button, four-way button and of course the large screen. And that’s only the main important ones, so have a look at the Olympus E-30 photo below. The left side of Olympus E-30 houses the DC port, whereas the right side the memory card slot hidden under a protective door. The bottom features the tripod mount and the battery door.

Performance:

The Olympus E-30, surprisingly, has not as good color accuracy as one might expect and far worse than the Sony A900. Moreover, the Olympus E-30 has only a few color modes which makes it difficult to manipulate the results. Additionally, the Olympus E-30 produces far too much noise and only when you apply noise reduction the images start to look noiseless, but with worse sharpness. However, if you do not apply the noise reduction system the Olympus E-30 has very good sharpness. The camera has also exceptional image stabilization and a wide selection of file sizes and aspect rations. Also the white balance settings are quite extensive, but if you do not what to make use of it the Olympus E-30 has also very good auto white balance. Unlike the Sony A900 the Olympus camera has a very nice live view on its 2.7 LCD screen.

Menus / ease of use:

Thanks to the very good built and balanced weight the Olympus E-30 handles very well with practically any lens. Also, the large amount of dedicated keys and controls help to adjust all necessary settings quickly. If you, however, decide to plunge into the menus you might find them a bit too cluttered and complicated. Fortunately, the Olympus E-30 comes with a very good manual so you will most probably get it in no time.

Selected Olympus E-30 features and specifications:

• Glass fibre reinforced plastics

Sensor

• • 4/3″ Hi-Speed Live MOS sensor
• • 17.3 x 13.0 mm active area
• • 13.1 million total pixels
• • 12.3 million effective pixels
• • RGB (Primary) color filter array
• • Fixed low pass filter (anti-alias filter)

Dust suppression

• Supersonic Wave Filter

Image processor

• TruePic III

Image stabilization

• • In-body sensor shift
• • Three modes: Horizontal+Vertical, Vertical only, Horizontal only

Aspect Ratio

• 4:3 / 3:2 / 16:9 / 6:6 / 5:4 / 7:6 / 6:5 / 7:5 / 3:4

Image sizes

• • 4032 x 3024
• • 3200 x 2400
• • 1600 x 1200
• • 1280 x 960
• • 1024 x 768
• • 640 x 480

File formats

• • RAW
• • RAW + JPEG
• • JPEG (EXIF 2.2) – Four levels

JPEG compression

• • SuperFine (1/2.7)
• • Fine (1/4)
• • Normal (1/8)
• • Basic (1/12)

Lenses

• • 4/3 standard lens mount
• • Range of ZUIKO DIGITAL lenses available
• • Multiply focal length by 2 for 35 mm equiv. FOV

Auto focus

• • 11-point TTL Phase Difference Detection
• • Automatic or manual point selection
• • EV -2 to 19 (ISO 100) detection range

Focus area selection

• • Automatic
• • Manual

Focus modes

• • Single shot AF
• • Single shot AF + MF
• • Continuous AF (Phase detect only)
• • Continuous AF + MF (Phase detect only)
• • Manual focus

AF assist lamp

• Yes, flash strobe

Exposure modes

• • Auto
• • Program AE (with shift)
• • Aperture priority AE
• • Shutter priority AE
• • Manual

Sensitivity

• • Auto (100-1600)
• ISO 100
• ISO 200 
• ISO 400
• ISO 800
• ISO 1600
• ISO 3200

Metering system

• • TTL open aperture
• • 49-zone multi-pattern
• • Range (Digital ESP): 1 to 20 EV (50 mm F2, ISO 100)

Metering modes

• • Digital ESP
• • Center-Weighted Average
• • Spot (2%)
• • Highlight based spot
• • Shadow based spot

AE Lock

• • AE/AF lock button
• • With shutter release half-press

AE Bracketing

• • 3 frames
• • 1/3, 1/2, 0.7 or 1.0 EV steps

Exposure steps

• 1/3, 1/2 or 1.0 EV

Exposure compen.

• • -5.0 to +5.0 EV
• • 1/3, 1/2 or 1.0 EV steps

Shutter speed

• • Auto mode: 60 – 1/8000 sec
• • P, A, S or M mode: 60 – 1/4000 sec
• • Bulb (up to 30 mins)

Flash X-sync speed

• • 1/250 sec
• • 1/8000 sec (Super FP mode)

White balance

• • Auto
• • Tungsten (3000K)
• • Fluorescent 1 (4000K)
• • Fluorescent 2 (4500K)
• • Fluorescent 3 (6600K)
• • Sunlight (5300K)
• • Flash (5500K)
• • Cloudy (6000K)
• • Shade (7500K)
• • Custom (2000 – 14000 K)
• • Selectable (3000 – 7500 in 8 steps)

WB fine tuning

• • Red – Blue: +/- 7 steps (2 mired each)
• • Green – Magenta: +/- 7 steps (2 mired each)

WB Bracketing

• • 3 frames
• • 2, 4 or 6 mired steps

Color space

• • sRGB
• • Adobe RGB

Image parameters

• • Color mode (Vivid, Natural, Portrait, Muted, Monotone, Custom)
• • Saturation (5 levels)
• • Contrast (5 levels)
• • Sharpness (5 levels)
• • Monochrome (B&W, Sepia, Red, Green, Blue) – filter (Ye, Or, Re, Gr)
• • Graduation (Auto, High Key, Normal, Low Key)

Drive modes

• • Single
• • Continuous
• • Self-timer
• • Remote control

Continuous

• • 5 fps
• • RAW: 12 frames maximum
• • JPEG: Up to card capacity @ Large Normal (with high speed media)
• Self-timer
• • 2 sec
• • 12 sec

Flash

• • Auto electronic pop-up
• • TTL auto / manual
• • Guide no. 13
• • Sync modes: Auto, Red-eye reduction, Slow syncro with red-eye reduction,
• Slow syncro, 2nd curtain slow syncro, Fill-in, Off
• • Flash power: Up to +/- 3 EV in 1, 1/2, or 1/3 EV steps

External flash

• • Hot shoe
• • TTL AUTO, AUTO, MANUAL, FP TTL AUTO, FP MANUAL
• • Modes:Auto, Manual, Red-eye reduction, Slow syncro with red-eye reduction, Slow syncro, 2nd curtain slow syncro, Fill-in for exclusive flash.
• • Flash power: Up to +/- 3EV in 1, 1/2, or 1/3 EV steps

Viewfinder

• • Eye-level single-lens view finder
• • Field of view 98%
• • Magnification 1.02x with a 50mm lens and -1 dioptre
• • Eye point 14 mm at -1 dioptre
• • Depth of field preview
• • Dioptre adjustment -3 to +1 dioptre
• • Focusing screen: Interchangeble
• • Mirror: Quick return mirror

Orientation sensor

• Yes

LCD monitor

• • 2.7″ Hypercrystal II LCD monitor
• • 230,000 pixels
• • 100% frame coverage

Playback functions

• • Single
• • Magnify (2 – 14x)
• • Index (4, 9, 16, 25, 49, 100 frames)
• • Calendar view
• • Rotation
• • Light box view
• • Slide show
• • Histogram
• • R,G,B Histogram (With Highlight & Shadow point warning)
• • Shooting information

Editing

• • RAW data edit 
• Red-eye reduction 
• Sepia 
• Black & White 
• Resize
• Correction of saturation 
• Shadow Adjustment Technology

Storage

• • Compact Flash (Type I and II) / Microdrive
• • xD- Picture card

Connectivity

• • USB 2.0 (Hi Speed)
• • Video Out (NTSC / PAL)
• • IR Remote control (optional)

Power

• BLM-1 Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery (supplied & charger)

Other recently reviewed digital cameras:

Sony A900, Panasonic Lumix ZS3