Olympus E-30 Review

There were a few minor bumps in the road for the E-30, but as a rule, we've come away generally impressed from our time with this camera. Olympus has certainly packed in all the right features to make this model appealing to the enthusiast market.

With this in mind, I'll admit that where I'm conflicted on the E-30 has nothing to do its performance or features, and everything to do with its price. For about $1300 at the moment, you get Olympus's very good, very fresh advanced amateur body. Not only does this price the body-only E-30 above most of its rivals' kit prices, but Olympus's full-on professional model is only ringing up a few hundred dollars higher at some retailers right now. Admittedly, the E-3 is starting to look a little long in the tooth, and certainly doesn't have some of the cool features and brand new technologies that the E-30 offers, but in exchange you get a highly rugged pro spec camera body.

Other than the possible temptation to jump straight into the pro system, there's very little to keep Olympus fans from coming to the E-30 in droves. Amid some stiff competition – on both features and price – from some of the best cameras we've reviewed in awhile in the 50D and, especially, the D90, it's hard to tell how successful the E-30 will be in convincing users to jump ship from other manufacturers. But on its own merits, the E-30 is a good buy for advanced shooters that, with a few operational tweaks and/or a price cut, might just be a great one. In either case, there's enough that's different here to make the E-30 worth checking out: after all and especially in photography, different perspectives can be a good thing.

Pros:

* Art filters are fun and surprisingly useful
* Top-shelf focusing speed
* Usable contrast-detection AF makes live view even better
* Excellent build quality
* Most of the technology of the E-3 in a smaller camera

Cons:

* Unless you're familiar with Olympus, good luck with all those buttons
* By most measures, images are a half-step behind the class leaders
* Priced about the same as a Nikon D90 kit, and too close to the E-3 for comfort


David Rasnake

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