Digital Camera Fiend - A Camera Review

Its stubby (read: ugly) design isn’t the only reason I dislike the Olympus E-300 EVOLT.

This camera, 8-megapixels, was released in 2004 and is a decent piece of equipment for the price, with a few significant drawbacks.
You can check prices and review an Olympus E-300 here.

Reviewers generally praise its resolution (comparing it to the Canon EOS 20D), good automatic white balance and lightning fast image write time. It also priced itself very competitively against other cameras.

But the E-300 has shortcomings that cannot be overlooked, most importantly with its ISO (light sensitivity). You won’t be able to go into a dark church in Rome and confidently shoot–the E-300 begins to falter at ISO 1600.

Stick to ISO 100-400. You’ll start noticing significant “image noise” when you push it to higher sensitivities because its Kodak sensor simply can’t handle it.

Others don’t care for the camera’s design. It was made with a horizontal viewfinder, causing the camera to be shorter and appear wide. The viewfinder is also unusual in that it uses four mirrors instead of a prism, but you won’t know the difference.

For its price, the Olympus E-300 is definitely a good buy, but it might be wiser to spend a little more and get a superior DSLR camera.