Why shouldn't I buy a E300 Olympus?
Why shouldn't I buy a E300 Olympus?
Author
Discussion

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Friday 12th May 2006
quotequote all
I was saving for the 350D but this looks the nuts . . . and saves me 200 euro's.

What do you think?

Polarbert

17,936 posts

261 months

Friday 12th May 2006
quotequote all
It looks ugly mate. Trust me, keep saving for a 350D

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Friday 12th May 2006
quotequote all
It may look ugly - so do I - but the grip is way better. 350 is too small for my righthand.

Quality is top . . . It cleans the digital eye as well . . .

_dobbo_

14,619 posts

278 months

Friday 12th May 2006
quotequote all
i thought you already had a D70?

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Friday 12th May 2006
quotequote all
D70 is from work . . . and yes, I can use it . . . untill I change jobs . . . soon

klassiekerrally

2,543 posts

285 months

Saturday 13th May 2006
quotequote all

ThatPhilBrettGuy

11,810 posts

270 months

Saturday 13th May 2006
quotequote all
How many Four Thirds accessories are there? Now, how many Canon / Nikon / Sigma etc etc accessories are there?

See the problem with it yet? It's got a beta-max feel to it.....

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

284 months

Saturday 13th May 2006
quotequote all
Smaller sensor than aps-c no? Big reason to buy a 350d.

Slr Lenses oversised on the canon, you get to use the best part of the glass, not so on 4/3rds.

20 years worth of lenses out there.

I dont think the olympus will be a bad camera but the 350d is a better buy.

woody

2,189 posts

314 months

Saturday 13th May 2006
quotequote all
Oh - don't buy an olympus - you won't get membership to either the Nikon Clud or the Canon dark sdie....

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Saturday 13th May 2006
quotequote all
ThatPhilBrettGuy said:
How many Four Thirds accessories are there? Now, how many Canon / Nikon / Sigma etc etc accessories are there?


I'll have the camera and some filters . . . that's it

RobDickinson said:
Smaller sensor than aps-c no? Big reason to buy a 350d. I dont think the olympus will be a bad camera but the 350d is a better buy.


It saves me 200 euro's and if that that awkward spotmeter thingy is sorted out and image quality is good . . . I can't see why I'd have a 350 . . .

woody said:
Oh - don't buy an olympus - you won't get membership to either the Nikon Clud or the Canon dark sdie....


. . . unless it's for the snob-reason. But I'm not like that

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Wednesday 24th May 2006
quotequote all
I did it . . .









Almost no fiddling here, just some cropping and noiseskip, 'mijnalbum.nl' always shows the pics a bit too dark. Overall color is better than standard D70 (highest quality jpeg) but the Nikons lens seems a bit more edgy / sharper. But hey, these shots were on the way back to the car from the shop: a 7 min walk

Pot Bellied Fool

2,264 posts

267 months

Thursday 25th May 2006
quotequote all
Ah-ha! Another E-300 user at last!

I bought mine as a factory refurb from an ebay dealer in a fit of drunken "want one of those" moments!

I should have researched it more thoroughly but I'm pleased enough with it. It's fair to say the camera is better than I am so it'll do for a while, could just do with a longer lens to get some of the styles of photo I'm after but on the whole I like it.

Here's a few I took with mine, www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topi

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Thursday 25th May 2006
quotequote all
Right Dunc, mind if we share some experience here?

What's the best general setting for autofocus? . . . and flash? I'm using ESP for lightmeasurement. Looks OK to me . . . PDF is a big pile of pages . . . and I'm lazy. 23 years of photography though . . .

Saturday I'm doing a Rally report from a TR4 and I'll take the cam. Pics monday

These were done with a Nikon D70.

Thanx, cheers, Dink.

Pot Bellied Fool

2,264 posts

267 months

Thursday 25th May 2006
quotequote all
So far I've not used anything other than ESP as I've been a bit short on time over the last few months but it seems to work quite well. It's on my list of things to try to see if I can get better results of the beach statues without the sky blowing out - weather's not been fit for going out recently so I'll see what it's like this weekend.

The PDF manual isn't very good, it tells you what the options are for things but not always as much detail about what the option actually does!

I've found the flash to work pretty well for normal indoors type stuff. As soon as you pop the flash up, the camera compensates and you can use reduced power if you don't want it too harsh. I've not experimented with flash settings on longer exposures where you can select leading or trailing edge of the shutter for flash operation but it's one of the few areas where the manual is actually fairly helpfull.

I find the menu system fairly quick to use once you've set up your usual defaults.

You might find the continuous focus (C-AF) interesting for rally shots, everything I've shot so far has been static so not tried that option out. I've had no problem with operating it in standard autofocus mode with it only rarely getting confused as to which focus spot to use but you can always lock that with the [...] button or half depress the button & then move the camera to recompose before pressing fully down on the shutter.

So far, it's done everything I wanted so not needed to resort to the manual focus either on its own or as an add on to the autofocus.

Enjoy the rally & look forward to seeing some decent action shots!

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Thursday 25th May 2006
quotequote all
Pot Bellied Fool said:
Enjoy the rally & look forward to seeing some decent action shots!


Thanx for the info



The girls seem to enjoy dad's new toy

Flash, without fiddling in PS.

C-AF and SQ 2560x1920px=2.2mb jpg and 14.1mb rgb

Over 200 pics on a 512 mb card . . . nuff for A5 cmyk print.

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Sunday 28th May 2006
quotequote all
http://pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.

First real session . . . enjoy!

V6GTO

11,579 posts

272 months

Sunday 28th May 2006
quotequote all
90% of those are underexposed.

Martin.

dinkel

Original Poster:

27,823 posts

288 months

Sunday 28th May 2006
quotequote all
They look fine on my Mac . . . pc always shows a little dark.

LongQ

13,864 posts

263 months

Sunday 28th May 2006
quotequote all
dinkel,

I hhave always thought the Olympus metering system was one of the best. My wife's ancient AZ200 35mm has only just stopped working properly (film winds all the way on load) and up to that point, despite a few accidents, has performed extremely well and always produces weell exposed shots.

If the E300 has all the Olympus sensor cleaning technology as well it should be fine. A couple of the other manufacturers are to use it I believe, which has to be good news.

I have an old AX 2 somewhere. Must have been the first pocketable 35mm. A mate used one for some superb shots of his 3 month overland journey back to the UK after working in Kenya for several years. Brilliant slides as I remember, though it did seem to work better in the sun in Africa than mine did in the grey of the UK. But give it some good light and the exposures were spot on.