skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This big, heavy, rugged SLR camera has extensive advanced controls and fast burst-shooting speed, and can autofocus very quickly.
The 10.1-megapixel E3, the top dog in Olympus's line of digital single-lens-reflex (DSLR) cameras, is an attractive package for both pros and serious amateurs. You have to be serious about your photography--and have plenty of arm strength--though, because the bulky E3 body alone costs $1700 and weighs just under 2 pounds. Adding the lenses increases both the cost and the heft: The 12mm-to-60mm (24mm-to-120mm, 35mm equivalent) zoom I received with the E3 is around $900, by itself, and together the body and lens tip the scales at an arm-fatiguing 3.25 pounds.
Like most new DSLRs, though, the E3 provides speed and flexibility, and this camera offers them in spades. Tested against my now aging Canon 30D and the new Nikon D300, the E3 delivered lightning-quick auto-focusing, noticeably faster than either of the other cameras did. The E3 will capture up to five frames per second--not quite up to the Nikon's six-frames-per-second burst-shooting speed, but still quite fast.
The E3's flexibility starts with its bright, 2.5-inch color LCD, which swings away from the camera body and swivels. I loved this feature in my old Olympus C-5060, and the company had a good reason to add it to the E3: Pressing the live view button, you can compose your shot on the LCD screen. (A simple thing that every digital point-and-shoot does already.) The design makes shooting still lifes with a tripod, paparazzi pics over crowds, or macros of low-lying wildflowers much easier on the back. The LCD has one other extremely useful trick: Like most DSLRs, it displays a concise summary of current camera settings. Unlike with most of the competition, though, you can also use the four-way navigation buttons to highlight a specific setting and change it on screen, or you can use them to create a custom group setting--especially useful when you want to make several changes at the same time.
The E3 has highly customizable controls. Dual selector dials--one on the back, one on the front--are now commonplace on DSLRs. But you can reassign the E3's dials in a number of useful ways; you can, for example, set one to adjust the f-stop and the other to change the shutter speed. The same is true for the camera's many other controls; for example, the AE/AL button can lock the exposure value, or the focus, or both. All of that means less adapting to the camera and more adapting the camera to your way of shooting.
The theme extends to many of the creative controls in the E3's menu system. Some examples include the E3's implementation of automatic bracketing, which includes options for exposure, white balance, flash, and (new to me) ISO or image sensitivity bracketing. The E3 offers extensive control over color balance, as well: You can fine-tune all of the presets and color temperature settings along the red-green axis.
That level of control is a good thing, because the E3's color balance was off in some shooting situations. When I first started shooting with the E3 I was, to put it mildly, disappointed in the photos. For shots taken under difficult conditions--landscapes with lots of snow, water, and sky--all of my images were a stop-and-a-half underexposed and looked as if I had forgotten to remove a dark-blue filter. Correcting these shots (taken in RAW format) on my computer soaked up a lot of time. Extensive use of bracketing helped only a little. Fortunately, subsequent sessions with more mundane subjects, such as cars, homes, small still lifes, and dogs, produced far better results--accurate colors, outstanding details, and only the slight underexposures that are common in DSLRs.
Among the more interesting controls found in the E3 is an antishock mode, which trips the shutter from 1 to 30 seconds after you press the shutter release and the mirror snaps up--useful for macro work where you remembered to bring your tripod but forgot the (optional) wireless remote. Image stabilization is controlled within the camera, so the function works with all Olympus Zuiko lenses.
The Master 2 image editing application included with the E3 is a capable product, with a good selection of editing tools. If you want batch-processing capabilities, you'll have to upgrade to the $100 Studio 2, available from Olympus as an online download. (A 30-day trial version of Studio 2 is included on the Master 2 CD.) If you are an Adobe Photoshop CS3 jockey, the latest version of Camera Raw reportedly supports the Olympus RAW format. If you're on Photoshop CS2, you're probably facing an expensive upgrade, because the older version of Camera Raw that's compatible with CS2 won't recognize the E3's files.
Overall, I enjoyed using the E3. It feels comfortable in the hand, its magnesium body looks and feels durable--ready for extensive time in the field--and operating the controls is quick and efficient. And unlike my experience with many cameras, I could read the color LCD, even with my dark, polarized sunglasses on. As someone who shoots extensively in the mountains, my only concern is the color balance issue.
It would be easy to classify the Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom as a simple case of keeping up with the Joneses. A near twin to the older C-5060 that it replaces, the C-7070's bump in resolution from the now pedestrian 5 megapixels up to a more desirable 7.1 megapixels keeps it competitive with the slew of recently released 7- and 8-megapixel cameras. But Olympus has also added numerous refinements to the C-5060's prodigious collection of creative controls and made the C-7070 noticeably easier to use.
I will confess at this point that I own the C-5060, having purchased it based on our own Best Buy recommendation. Smaller and lighter than an SLR, the C-5060 made a good choice for the back-country and travel photography I do. The new C-7070 has all of the qualities that made its predecessor attractive, including a well-thought-out selection of control buttons and menus, plus extras like dual-media support (XD-Picture Card and CompactFlash) and a swiveling LCD--the latter being especially useful for shooting low-lying wildflowers.
The C-7070's refinements include the capability to capture RAW and JPEG images at the same time--useful if you want to display your work immediately, then go back and process the RAW files at a later time. The scene mode function is improved somewhat--though there are no longer individual settings on the mode dial, they are still easily selected by picking from a list on the LCD. Each scene mode choice now displays a sample image, helpful for less-experienced photographers.
Two completely new features are the in-camera red-eye fix and the so-called oracle auto focus, a function that might help sports photographers. It works like this: After you set the exposure lock on a moving subject, oracle AF tries to predict the correct distance to the subject at the time you actually press the trigger. To test this, I shot cars moving down a city street using either traditional autofocus or the oracle AF setting. I can't say that oracle AF was more successful in freezing my desired subject.
The focal length of the camera remains unchanged. The 4X optical zoom starts at the 35mm equivalent of 27mm--ideal for interior and landscape shooting. The f-stop range, however, is a little better on the newer model: f2.8 to f11 versus f2.8 to f8. That's helpful for a little more depth of field, but it would have been more useful if Olympus had made the lens faster--the now ancient C-5050 started at f1.8, and there were complaints from users when the C-5060 went to f2.8.
My expectations for the C-7070's image quality were not matched by the results of PC World's lab tests and my less-formal shots. Though it received an overall score of Very Good, the C-7070's image sharpness was only marginally better than that of the C-5060's images. Like a number of 7-megapixel models I've seen recently, there was a distinct falloff in sharpness when I viewed the C-7070's shots at 100 percent in Photoshop. Test images also had somewhat more noise than I expect to see in this level of camera. It's not objectionable in a standard 8 by 10 print, but will likely be pronounced if you crop and enlarge much.
Upshot: Though image quality is not quite what you'd expect, the C-7070 is still one of the most powerful and flexible advanced digital cameras available.
Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom
7.1 megapixels, 3072 by 2304 maximum resolution, 27mm to 110mm focal range (35mm equivalent), f2.6 to f11 maximum aperture range, shutter speeds from 16 seconds to 1/4000 second, optical and LCD viewfinders, USB connection, XD-Picture Card and CompactFlash slots, rechargeable lithium ion battery, 13.5 ounces with battery, Olympus Master software.
This rugged SLR is fast and can shoot in long bursts, but it requires specific lenses.
The Olympus EVolt E-300 digital SLR ($900 with lens, $800 otherwise) comes with a slew of creative features. Once you master them--particularly the exposure controls--you can take some truly dazzling photos. Digital photographers looking to move beyond a simple point-and-shoot model likely won't be disappointed by the EVolt E-300's strengths, though it does have some distinct weaknesses.
The EVolt's design is eye-catching. There's no hump on the top of the camera--the signature mark of all SLRs for the past 45 years. Olympus moved the viewfinder's optical path to the left side of the body, which makes the camera slightly shorter than most other digital SLRs. Though it isn't a significant savings in size, the flat-top design does seem to help the EVolt slide in and out of an overstuffed camera bag more easily. Our shipping Olympus has a polished look and feel. Its solid, bricklike body feels as if you could pound nails with it. The dials turn smoothly and easily, and the body fits firmly in two hands.
The E-300 will easily serve photographers of any skill level--convenient for those times when you have to hand your camera to someone who's comfortable with only point-and-shoot models. In addition to full automatic exposure mode, the E-300 has a selection of preset scene modes that quickly adjust your settings to specific situations. The E-300 provides a total of 15 scene modes in its menus; five of them also are located on its dial.
In the past we've praised Olympus cameras for their intuitive menus, but the E-300 takes a slight step backward. The submenus are not as well labeled as those of the Olympus C-8080 we tested previously, and working out the location of the camera's many settings takes some time. For example, the camera's white-balance controls are spread across three of the five menu sublevels. And you can't customize the menus as extensively as you can the Nikon D70's, for example, or even those of some earlier Olympus models.
On the plus side, the Olympus responds more quickly as you use it. Many of the key exposure controls change rapidly with the press of a dedicated button and a spin of the camera's selector dial. Also, I especially like the Olympus's status screen on its 1.8-inch LCD. It's easy to read, with blue letters on a black background, and it tied in nicely to the camera's controls.
For our formal image-quality tests, we took some shots in the camera's default fully automatic mode. It's a good test of a camera's ability to capture details and accurate color, before you add your exposure-correction preferences. The E-300's images looked similar to those from Canon's semiprofessional EOS 20D: a bit underexposed, with colors that were slightly less saturated than the hues of the original subject.
(Some digital photographers prefer default settings that produce slightly underexposed images that allow them to make adjustments on a PC without losing details, as would happen in overexposed areas.) In tests with automatic mode, the E-300 earned very high image quality scores--significantly higher than those of the Nikon D70s--and scored well for color accuracy when we used a custom white balance and manually adjusted the exposure settings (though here the D70s earned similarly high scores).
The EVolt E-300 has an 8.2-megapixel CCD--higher than on a few other affordably priced SLRs, such as the Nikon D70s and the Pentax *ist DS, which have a 6.1-megapixel CCD. In our test photo, the Olympus reproduced better fine-line details than the Nikon D70s--in fact, its output was comparable to that of the much more expensive, semiprofessional 8.2-megapixel Canon EOS 20D. The Olympus's high-resolution CCD will come in handy if you often crop and enlarge pictures to the practical limits of the images.
One innovative feature of the E-300 is a dust filter that sits between the shutter and the sensor and that vibrates to release dust particles. Dust specks in images shot by digital SLRs are a common problem, partly because changing lenses on an SLR exposes the camera's interior to dust.
On the downside, in our new test that evaluates how much digital noise cameras introduce to images, the EVolt E-300 produced noisier images at ISO 1600 than the other SLRs we tested.
In burst mode, the Olympus proved almost indefatigable. Capturing images in its second-best JPEG setting, the Olympus consistently fired off at about 2.5 frames per second, stopping only when I ran out of space on my CompactFlash card. At the highest JPEG setting, the camera is rated to take 12 consecutive frames. By contrast, burst mode on the SD Card-based Pentax *ist DS was less consistent, with the frames-per-second speed revving up and down, but averaging roughly 1.5 fps.
Unfortunately, the E-300 requires specific lenses. Unlike the digital SLRs from Canon, Nikon, and Pentax, there is no massive base of existing 35mm film camera lenses to choose from. If you're starting from scratch, buying clean used lenses for these cameras could save you a significant amount of money, but you don't have this option with the E-300. And while Olympus's selection of Zuiko Digital lenses is pretty good, it's still a fairly new line and doesn't have nearly the breadth of the competition. The Zuiko lens we received has a focal ring that is connected by wire to an electronic motor. By comparison, the focal rings on the other tested SLR lenses move glass inside the lens mechanically. The E-300's method lacks the tactile feedback the other lenses provide when focusing manually, though we did find the E-300's mechanism helpful for fine-tuning the autofocus.
Upshot: Though the lenses available are limited, the E-300 delivers high image quality, and its features are well suited to photographers of all skill levels.
Last year, Olympus released the SP-550UZ, a 7-megapixel digital camera with an impressive 18x zoom lens. We loved its lens' long reach and wide angle, and appreciated its great body design. Unfortunately, the camera was plagued with performance and picture quality issues. Now Olympus offers the SP-560UZ, an 8-megapixel follow-up. It carries over both good and bad aspects of last year's camera, but overall presents an improvement.
Body design was one of our favorite aspects of the SP-550UZ, so we were pleased to see that the new version looks and feels almost identical. Every design aspect is carried over, from the pop-up flash to the comfortably large, flat buttons. It even weighs nearly the same, standing at a hefty but manageable 16.4 ounces with four AA batteries and an xD memory card.
A whopping big lens stands out as the SP-560UZ's most prominent feature, just like its predecessor. The 27-to-486mm-equivalent lens is slightly wider and shorter than the SP-550UZ's 28-to-504mm-equivalent lens, but still offers the same f/2.8-4.5 range and 18x optical zoom. I could easily frame the spire of the Empire State Building from Hoboken, N.J., thanks to the camera's long reach. Sensor-shift image stabilization helps reduce camera shake, a vital feature when pushing the camera to its full zoom without a tripod to stabilize it.
Unfortunately, the SP-560UZ's biggest feature is also one of its greatest weaknesses. While its lens is long and wide, it simply isn't very sharp. Regardless of the lens position and focus, pictures taken on the SP-560UZ generally look soft. Fine details, like text focused upon from a great distance, can appear fuzzy regardless of focus, shutter speed, or ISO sensitivity. Beyond the softness, significant noise further hurts the camera's pictures. Notable grain appears at ISO 200, and gets significantly worse as sensitivity gets higher. At ISO 400 and higher, noise consumes fine details, rendering textures muddled.
Like most superzooms, the SP-560UZ targets experienced users, and so it is packed full of useful, advanced features. An electronic viewfinder offers a great alternative to the camera's 2.5-inch LCD screen for framing shots, especially when shooting in direct sunlight. The camera toggles between EVF and LCD screen, so you can't have both running at once. However, when shooting with the EVF, pictures still appear on the 2.5-inch LCD screen by default, so you have to take your face away from the viewfinder to review what you just shot. The SP-560UZ also includes a full selection of exposure controls, including Program/Aperture-priority/Shutter-priority, and Manual shooting modes.
While it didn't come loaded on our review sample, version 3.1 of the SP-560UZ firmware adds support for Olympus wireless flash units. If you install the optional firmware upgrade through the included Olympus Master 2 software (instructions can be found on Olympus' support site), the camera can be set to function on one of four different channels to wirelessly control Olympus' FL-50R or FL-36R flash units. This is the first time we've seen this feature on a non-SLR camera, and it can be useful for users who want to set up a small studio.
In our lab tests, the SP-560UZ far surpassed its slow predecessor but otherwise showed middling performance; it's responsive enough to shoot without much trouble, but it feels sluggish at times. After a 2.4-second wait from power-on to first shot, the camera could record a new JPEG every 2.1 seconds with the onboard flash turned off. With the flash enabled, that wait bumped up to 2.5 seconds between shots. RAW shooting was quite slow, capturing a single uncompressed picture every 13.5 seconds, though that's not abnormal for a non-SLR. RAW shooting is a welcome feature on any non-SLR camera, but the extra long shot-to-shot time definitely limits its usefulness. The shutter lagged a slightly sluggish 0.6 seconds with our high-contrast target, and 1.5 seconds with our low-contrast target. In burst mode, the camera captured 11 full-resolution JPEGs in 9.7 seconds for an average rate of 1.1 frames per second. The camera also features a high-speed burst mode that can shoot 15 still photos a second, though it can only record at 1280 x 960 or lower resolution, and doesn't refocus between shots.
If you want a camera with an extremely long lens for less than $500, the Olympus SP-560UZ is one of only a few choices available by retail. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 has a mere 15x optical zoom, but its slightly nicer pictures offset its slightly shorter lens. Otherwise, you'll need to invest in a digital SLR with a very long lens, and together they can cost a lot more.
CNET editors' review
Basic Specifications
Resolution 10.10 Megapixels
Lens 3.64x zoom (28-102mm eq.)
Viewfinder LCD
LCD Size 2.7 inch
ISO 80-1600
Shutter 4-1/1000
Max Aperture 3.5
Mem Type xD
Battery Custom LiIon
Dimensions 3.7x2.4x0.8in (94x61x21mm)
Weight 6.0 oz (170 g)
MSRP $400
Availability: 03/2008
Olympus Stylus 1030SW
Overview
The Olympus Stylus 1030SW is a 10.1 megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera with a rough-and-ready body that is waterproof, crushproof, shockproof, and freeze-proof. A 3.6x optical zoom lens provides a wider-than-average 35mm-equivalent focal length of 28mm-102mm and is complemented by a 5x digital zoom. At f/3.5-f/5.1, the lens isn't the fastest glass in town, but the camera specializes in outdoor shooting, so the speed of the lens should suffice under most outdoor conditions.
As is common for point-and-shoot cameras, aperture and shutter speed cannot be set manually on the Olympus Stylus 1030SW. Instead, you'll find a total of 29 shooting modes, 25 of which are scene modes. The 1030SW's basic feature set is complemented by on-board Help, a Shooting Guide, the very useful Perfect Shot Preview (which gives you a preview of how a photo will look with various settings such as White Balance), a live Histogram and Frame Assist. There's also a Shadow Adjustment feature on the Olympus 1030SW that is designed to balance shadows and highlights in various situations such as backlit scenes, and a Manometer that measures air pressure, so mountain climbers and scuba divers have a reference point of the height (or depth) at which an image is captured.
Face Detection and a post-processing automatic Perfect Fix feature add to the Olympus Stylus 1030SW's capabilities. Optical image stabilization is not available. Instead, the 1030SW utilizes its ISO range of 80 to 1600 for what the company calls "Digital image stabilization." Like most compact cameras, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW does not have an optical viewfinder. However, the camera is outfitted with a high resolution 2.7-inch LCD that has a wide angle of view and 5 brightness settings. All things being equal, even considering its feature set, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW's real claim to fame is its ability to withstand conditions that other cameras (or their manufacturers) can only dream of.
Olympus Stylus 1030SW User Report
Like its predecessors in the SW lineup, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW is made for the outdoors and can handle just about anything you can think of. You can drop it from 6.6 feet, sit or stand on it (it can withstand up to 220 pounds of pressure), take it underwater to a depth of 33 feet, or outdoors in sub-freezing weather (down to 14 degrees F). But you don't have to be an outdoor adventurer to test the Olympus 1030SW's durability; just think of it as a camera that can go where no other camera can -- or should -- venture.
The Olympus 1030SW is a perfect companion for the swimming pool, beach, boat, or anywhere water, dirt, dust, and other elements would wreak havoc with the electronics of most cameras. At its core, though, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW is a point-and-shoot camera with the standard array of shooting options. But its feature set holds a few pleasant surprises with extras that make shooting easier for novices, and provide more experienced users with a couple of handy options as well. The camera has a few shortcomings that may detract from its usefulness as your one-and-only digital camera, but the Olympus Stylus 1030SW is a hardcore camera for those who want to take pictures under conditions where other cameras fear to tread.
Look and Feel.
Built like a workhorse, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW's metal body is incredibly sturdy. Thanks to special protective seals and gaskets, the camera can be submersed in water to a depth of 33 feet. Because it's so well-sealed, the Olympus 1030SW is impervious to rain, snow, sleet, hail, dust, sand, and other outdoor camera hazards. At the same time, the metal body can be dropped from a height of 6.6 feet with no ill effects; and while you may not make a habit (as I did) of purposely dropping your camera, accidents happen and it's always comforting to know that a slip-through-the-fingers drop or bump won't harm the camera. You should, however, check the sealed areas for specs of dust or sand, which can interfere with the seals.
The Olympus 1030SW's crushproof feature is probably more important than you imagine as I recently found out. After setting the camera on the couch next to me one day, a friend innocently sat down on it. Although he weighs less than 220 pounds, this made me a believer in Olympus' claims that the 1030SW's body and reinforced LCD can withstand up to 220 pounds of pressure. Since freezing temperatures are long gone in my area, I didn't test the 1030SW's ability to function in 14-degree Fahrenheit conditions; but in last year's test of its sibling, the 770SW, there were no problems (other than my frozen hands and face).
Measuring 3.7 x 2.4 x 0.94 inches, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW is small enough to be carried comfortably in pocket or purse. It weighs about 6.3 ounces with the battery and xD-Picture Card, a little heavier than other compact cameras, but the weight certainly adds to the camera's sturdy feel. The Olympus 1030SW's design is a little different from most, and looks more industrial than sexy. However, the 1030SW comes in three cool color combos: silver/silver, black/silver, and green/silver.
A self-covering lens is located in the upper right hand corner (when you're looking at the camera from the front), with the flash just out of the way of your forefinger when gripping the camera. The lens is protected by the automatic cover, which opens when you power up the camera and the lens's surface showed no droplets or other picture-altering effects when wet. But it's a little too easy to let the forefinger on your left hand stray in front of the lens and ruin the shot, so be particularly careful if you have large hands. Generally, though, the Olympus Stylus 1030SW is fairly comfortable to hold.
The Olympus 1030SW doesn't have an optical viewfinder; rather, your sole method of composing is its 2.7-inch, 230,000-dot LCD. The display has a wide angle of view so you can easily see your composition from the side or overhead. This also allows you to easily share images with family and friends right after you've photographed them. The ability to adjust the LCD's brightness in five steps is an extra benefit so you can easily tweak the monitor according to shooting conditions. In low light, the 1030SW's LCD lights up automatically so you can clearly see what you're shooting.
Conclusion
Pro:
*Compact, attractive design
* Rugged build
* Waterproof
* Freeze proof
* Crushproof
* Shockproof
* Submersible to 33 feet with no time limits
* Special underwater scene modes
* 28mm wide-angle optical zoom
* Macro illumination lamp
* Face Detection
* 2.7-inch LCD
* Shadow Adjustment
* Live preview of effects, exposure, and white balance
* Helpful on-board Guide
* Quality mode dial replaces mode button
* Pre-Capture movie mode
Con:
* External control identifiers difficult to read
* Image noise even at low ISO
* Chromatic aberration
* Soft images
* Face Detection buried in main menu
* Image quality not as good as "non-rugged" competition
* Poor autofocus system
* No manual aperture and shutter speed controls
* Digital image stabilization isn't what it sounds like
* Weak flash
* No optical viewfinder
