E300 Users


Status
Not open for further replies.
When collect? Still thinking if I should or shouldn't buy!
 

Anyone booked the E300 DSLR?

1. raycsk
2. serene
__________________
 

Add one more to-be (haven't collected, mah!) E300 user :

1. raycsk
2. serene
3. jamestyemk
 

After 3 days of show only 3 of us made pre-orders?

Collection @ 3rd week of Dec; informed by AP guys there that it would be the worldwide launch date or something like that. What a party if just a handful of us turn up! Higher chance of winning a free E-300, maybe. The lucky one should buy the rest of us a lens, I mean a meal.
 

jamestyemk said:
After 3 days of show only 3 of us made pre-orders?

Collection @ 3rd week of Dec; informed by AP guys there that it would be the worldwide launch date or something like that. What a party if just a handful of us turn up! Higher chance of winning a free E-300, maybe. The lucky one should buy the rest of us a lens, I mean a meal.

As of the early afternoon of first day, 15 sets are booked. But I think the figure will slow down after looking at the initial samples from Olympus. ;p
 

any down payment for booking?
 

yes, need downpayment $100
 

:)
jamestyemk said:
Add one more to-be (haven't collected, mah!) E300 user :

1. raycsk
2. serene
3. jamestyemk
4. hhho

during booking, i was told number thirty one :)
 

Anyone booked the E300 DSLR?

1. raycsk
2. serene
3. jamestyemk
4. hhho
5. tomcat
 

xmen2003 said:
As of the early afternoon of first day, 15 sets are booked. But I think the figure will slow down after looking at the initial samples from Olympus. ;p

Marketing doesn't seem to be Olympus' forte. On the flip side, the images were honest which I'm sure all of us at one time or another somehow had an underexposure or two. That can nowadays be easily taken care of through digital touch-up. The resolution and handling was good, though.
 

Hi James
Agree with you. The photos have been taken just like that, I believe, without effort at studio style set up. Probably, Oly does not want to encourage unrealistic expectations lest customers complain. To be frank, I will be most happy if I can point and shoot and get pictures of this quality. I don't like to spend time in Photoshop. :embrass:
 

1. raycsk
2. serene
3. jamestyemk
4. hhho
5. tomcat

Anyone planning to get the zoom lens? Was told that the 40-150 will be about $500.

Maybe if we collect and buy the zoom together we can squeeze some price.
 

Hi ! To all who booked your E300

Can you share about the plus and minus points about this camera
(still undeciding whether it is a good buy)

Secondly, is VR feature important in a camera ?

Lastly, it is impt to have to "anti dust" feature in a camera ?

Thank you, all !
 

I know its a brand new system that hasn't been released yet but how do you think this will compare to the D70?

Oh and what you guys decide to buy it?
 

Mission said:
Hi ! To all who booked your E300

Can you share about the plus and minus points about this camera
(still undeciding whether it is a good buy)

Secondly, is VR feature important in a camera ?

Lastly, it is impt to have to "anti dust" feature in a camera ?

Thank you, all !
The main plus in my opinion is the price. It is the cheapest DSLR available (or is it to be available in the nearest future?). For the price of a prosumer digicam, you get to try out the latest DSLR technology and it comes with a very respectable Zuiko Digital 14-45mm lens which cost $400+ if bought separately. So even if the Four-Thirds system failed to take-off eventually, my losses would be affordably low.

The SITEX offer make the price even more attractive. The E300 will come with 2 nos. of 1G 80X Lexar CF cards and a Olympus Pro-Bag. At current CF prices, that's another $300+ savings on CF cards alone. All that means that a 8M DSLR body can be had for <$1,000 :eek:

I also like the fact that these Zuiko Digital Lenses have a Smart Lens Design and are the only lenses that are have firmware that are user-upgradeable by direct connection and downloading thru the internet. Zuiko Digital Lenses store data in the digital firmware file allowing for software-assisted correction of geometric distortion anomalies like pin cushion and barrel distortion. In fact, it seems that with these data, the camera itself can perform the corrections automatically. And this would explain why some reviewers found essentially zero barrel or pincushion distortion from the Zuiko ED 14-54mm zoom when tested with the E-1.

Another feature unique to the E300 is that both the pop-up flash and external flash (FL-20, FL-36, and FL-50 flashes) could be used together. No other DSLRs currently available could do this. While one of the latter two flashes could be used to bounce light off a wall or ceiling, the pop-up flash can still be up and available to apply fill flash. The pop-up moves not only up, but also forward to keep from hitting the shoe-mounted external flash. According to Olympus, this gives the flash greater ability to peek over most lenses for better coverage of close-in subjects.

The minus would be the prices of Olympus' higher end Zuiko ED Digital lenses and the currently limited range of lenses. Sigma is coming out with 3 '4/3' lenses (18-50mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom, 55-200mm f/4-5.6 zoom, and an 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom) though. Those with deep pockets can however look forward to the new Zuiko ED 7–14mm f4.0 ultra-wide zoom, one of the widest in the world for “100% digital specific” zoom lenses. The new range of lower end Zuiko Digital lenses like the Zuiko Digital 40–150mm f3.5–4.5 (equivalent to 80–300mm in 35mm photography) are quite affordable though.

Both the VR/IS/AS and Dust Reduction systems are 'good-to-haves'. Unfortunately, no camera system has both of them together and only the Olympus has the Ultrasonic Dust Reduction system in their Four-Thirds DSLRs.

Most users could actually take perfectly good pictures without the help of VR/IS/AS and might not miss anything if they do not have VR/IS lenses or AS camera bodies. However, ALL DSLRs suffer from image sensor dust problem sooner or later. So you come to your own conclusion on which is more important.

The way I see it, although Olympus currently does not have an image stabilisation feature in their DSLRs, that does not mean that they could not eventually come out with a lens that has IS built-in like those of Canon and Nikon if they so desired that will work on their existing camera bodies. Conversely, image sensor dust reduction systems must logically be inbuilt into the camera body and could never be retrofitted into existing camera bodies.
 

tomcat said:
The main plus in my opinion is the price. It is the cheapest DSLR available (or is it to be available in the nearest future?). For the price of a prosumer digicam, you get to try out the latest DSLR technology and it comes with a very respectable Zuiko Digital 14-45mm lens which cost $400+ if bought separately. So even if the Four-Thirds system failed to take-off eventually, my losses would be affordably low.

The SITEX offer make the price even more attractive. The E300 will come with 2 nos. of 1G 80X Lexar CF cards and a Olympus Pro-Bag. At current CF prices, that's another $300+ savings on CF cards alone. All that means that a 8M DSLR body can be had for <$1,000 :eek:

I also like the fact that these Zuiko Digital Lenses have a Smart Lens Design and are the only lenses that are have firmware that are user-upgradeable by direct connection and downloading thru the internet. Zuiko Digital Lenses store data in the digital firmware file allowing for software-assisted correction of geometric distortion anomalies like pin cushion and barrel distortion. In fact, it seems that with these data, the camera itself can perform the corrections automatically. And this would explain why some reviewers found essentially zero barrel or pincushion distortion from the Zuiko ED 14-54mm zoom when tested with the E-1.

Another feature unique to the E300 is that both the pop-up flash and external flash (FL-20, FL-36, and FL-50 flashes) could be used together. No other DSLRs currently available could do this. While one of the latter two flashes could be used to bounce light off a wall or ceiling, the pop-up flash can still be up and available to apply fill flash. The pop-up moves not only up, but also forward to keep from hitting the shoe-mounted external flash. According to Olympus, this gives the flash greater ability to peek over most lenses for better coverage of close-in subjects.

The minus would be the prices of Olympus' higher end Zuiko ED Digital lenses and the currently limited range of lenses. Sigma is coming out with 3 '4/3' lenses (18-50mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom, 55-200mm f/4-5.6 zoom, and an 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom) though. Those with deep pockets can however look forward to the new Zuiko ED 7&#8211;14mm f4.0 ultra-wide zoom, one of the widest in the world for &#8220;100% digital specific&#8221; zoom lenses. The new range of lower end Zuiko Digital lenses like the Zuiko Digital 40&#8211;150mm f3.5&#8211;4.5 (equivalent to 80&#8211;300mm in 35mm photography) are quite affordable though.

Both the VR/IS/AS and Dust Reduction systems are 'good-to-haves'. Unfortunately, no camera system has both of them together and only the Olympus has the Ultrasonic Dust Reduction system in their Four-Thirds DSLRs.

Most users could actually take perfectly good pictures without the help of VR/IS/AS and might not miss anything if they do not have VR/IS lenses or AS camera bodies. However, ALL DSLRs suffer from image sensor dust problem sooner or later. So you come to your own conclusion on which is more important.

The way I see it, although Olympus currently does not have an image stabilisation feature in their DSLRs, that does not mean that they could not eventually come out with a lens that has IS built-in like those of Canon and Nikon if they so desired that will work on their existing camera bodies. Conversely, image sensor dust reduction systems must logically be inbuilt into the camera body and could never be retrofitted into existing camera bodies.

The most rational exposition for why anyone would buy an E-300 yet. :thumbsup:

"And this would explain why some reviewers found essentially zero barrel or pincushion distortion from the Zuiko ED 14-54mm zoom when tested with the E-1."

Not quite so there. The previous ZD lenses have fundamentally very low geometric distortion by design. It's not because they tested it with the distortion correction feature fix. But yes, the smart lens corrections (auto light-fall off correction and geometric distortion correction) could be interesting things to play with.

All of the automated optical aberration fixes are best applied at the software end only IMO because in-camera processing for these aberrations would slow down shooting quite a lot (but if you're not in a hurry it shouldn't matter). Correction for geometric distortion was an Olympus Studio-only feature with the E-1 (not available with Viewer). You might want to find out if you need to purchase Studio 1.2 to use that with the E-300.

Studio 1.2 looks pretty good though. You probably need this to squeeze the max out of RAW. What's it cost at Sitex?
 

Thank you Tomcat for that wonderful writeup. Helps tremendously in my decision making! Appreciated!
 

Set liao. Like that Comfirm buy E-300. I have to agree is sort of the cheapest DSLR in the market.
 

Status
Not open for further replies.