Olympus E-300 EVOLT SLR review updated to full production status
By
Dave Etchells
(Monday, March 14, 2005 - 12:03 EST)
At long last picking up the pieces after PMA, here's an update of our EVOLT review, based on a full production sample, with all timing figures updated, and a full image analysis.
We found a lot to like here, when the lighting is right (more on that in a bit), the Olympus E-300's images have a beautiful tonality and very pleasing color. Shawn shot a lot of beautiful family portraits with it, and it produced gorgeous skin tones and very subtle shading. The camera also seems to have a very wide color gamut, which means that the base color is a tad less saturated than some amateurs will be accustomed to, but that it handles even pretty extreme saturation with aplomb.
The one issue that bothered us during the testing was that the camera's evaluatlve metering system ("ESP" metering) tended to over-react to strong highlights near the center of the frame. This led to some highly variable exposures on Shawn's personal portrait work, and a severe underexposure on our "far-field" test shot of the house with the bright bay window in front.
Other than situations of this type though, the camera generally produced accurate exposures and good-looking images, with plenty of resolution. If you're in the market for a d-SLR and don't already own a bagful of Canon or Nikon lenses, the Olympus E-300 EVOLT deserves a look.
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