Olympus E-330 - First impression

Olympus surprised everyone when they introduced the E-300 at the Photokina Exhibition in september 2004. Its design was different, without the characteristic "roof" on top, which is typical for a single-lens-reflex camera. Some liked this new design, others not. Personally, I was quite pleased, as it persued the principle idea of the FourThirds system, namely compact measures and light weight. In my opinion, user friendliness is more important than esthetics.

The public didn't see it that way. SLR cameras should also look like SLR cameras, particularly towards the neighbour, friends, acquainted and strangers. Therefore, it will be very interesting to see how the public will react to the E-330, built on the same basic concept. Has the view on untraditional designs changed? Has the public matured and become more receptible to new ideas? Will the joy of a live view LCD suppress the resistance towards a less appealing design?

At PMA recently, General Manager Heino Hilbig at Olympus Imaging Europa told me that "live view" was originally planned also for the E-300 but there were no suitable image sensor available. Kodak, who were their main supplier of image sensors, were unable to develop a new sensor in time. The hunt continued and when Panasonic joined the FourThirds alliance, it didn't take long before development of a "live view" image sensor was in progress.

The result is what we see today - Olympus with their live view E-330 and Panasonic following up with their version of the camera, the professional Lumix DMC-L1. The main advantage of the Panasonic Live MOS sensor is not its "live view" function but its remarkable imaging performance. Although I have not yet had time to make an in-detail analysis of my shots nor making studio test shots, I can definately conclude that it outperfoms the E-300 CCD sensor in all respects. Yes, I know that the image resolution is reduced from 8 MP to 7.5 MP, but this reduction has merely improved the image quality.

A dedicated image processor was developed for the E-330. Olympus calls it TruePic TURBO, at Panasonic it's called Venus Engine III. I'm almost certain that it's the same processor with two different names. In any case, the Olympus version seems to do an excellent job. My few shots so far show well defined colours, large dynamic range og impressingly low image noise, even at ISO 1600. A major advantage of the new Live MOS is its larger light sensitive area within each pixel, the same size as the FFT-CCD image sensor in the E-300, three times larger than a CMOS sensor.

Improvements and new functions
Apart from the image sensor and the processor, also the optical viewfinder is changed from the E-300. The E-330 has two forms of "live view". One function is the live picture delivered from the MOS image sensor itself. This is only for manual focussing though, with an option of 10x enlarged image. With the other method, the E-330 works like a regular compact camera with auto focus. In this case, the live image comes from an additional CCD sensor placed inside the viewfinder housing.

When the LCD screen is used as a viewfinder, the camera will naturally be held at some distance from the face, leaving the eyepiece open for stray light to enter. Via the optical system of lenses, mirrors and prisms, this stray light may influence on the exposure metering and the auto focus system. Therefore, a eyepiece shutter is built in and this should be shut when using the LCD screen for composition and framing. Despite a clear warning on the LCD-screen, it is easy to forget or neglect. As this may inflict on the image quality, I think it would be wise of Olympus to design an automatic door. Besides, an image coverage of only 92% on the LCD-screen needs to be improved, at least to 95%, like the optical viewfinder.

When using the optical viewfinder, the LCD screen may function as a huge information panel with selectable background colour. With live view activated the information panel will be superimposed into the live image.

Live view display sets higher demands to the LCD screen performance. Therefore, the E-330 screen is larger than on the E-300, 2.5" diagonally (6.35 cm) versus 1.8" (4.6 cm) on E-300 and its resolution is increased from 134.000 to 215.250 pixels. The main improvement is the tilting construction, 90 degrees upwards and 45 degrees downwards and the viewing angle is now 160 degrees. Additionally, it is equipped with the Olympus HyperCrystal technology for improved outdoor visibility.

My experience with the screen is devided. It works well in summer, even in sunshine, provided the brightness is set to maximum (7 levels up). However, if you are in snow covered surroundings and the sun is shining, it is virtually impossible to see anything on the screen. Your eyes simply can't cope with such extreme contrasts. In these circumstances, an optical viewfinder is priceless, especially an SLR finder.

Compared to cameras of more professional nature, the buffer memory in the E-330 is rather modest. Whether you shoot TIFF, RAW, JPEG or RAW+JPEG, the maximum number of shots held in the buffer is four. For me personally, it is adequate, but most action photographers will find it unreasonably limited. The speed of 3 fps should be sufficient for most users, but it is only available with the live view deactivated, otherwise the shooting speed is 1.6 fps continuously.

The start-up speed gets no high ranking due to the ultrawave dust filter, which is activated each time the camera is switched on. From the power is turned on till you can start shooting, the E-330 needs 3 seconds. This is a small price to pay for the benefit of such a remarkable feature. The auto focus system is fast and highly sensitive and the shutter release response is virtually instantanous (measured to 0.03 s).

Playback is activated with a dedicated button and the image appears almost immediately. Also image browsing runs without delay. During playback 25, 16, 9 or 4 thumbnails may be displayed for fast image selection, alternatively by date. Displayed image may be enlarged up to 14x for detail study and two images may be displayed simultanously for comparison. Image information contains recording data, four histograms (luminance, red, green and blue) or a larger luminance histogram, as well as warning display of highlight and shadow areas.

E-330 is equipped with a 49-fields evaluating light meter with a dual sensor system for dark and light areas to obtain maximum dynamic range. Additionally, there are centre weighted average metering and spot metering, the latter with a unique highlight/shadow control. The camera may also make three bracketing shots with variable exposure, white balance, flash exposure and focus.

During shooting, the photographer may choose between three defined settings of contrast, sharpness and saturation, all with manual override. The settings are called "Vivid", "Natural" and "Muted". In addition, there are settings for "Monotone" and "Sepia", also with adjustable parameters. During playback, an image may be converted to black-and-white or sepia, colour saturation may be added or subtracted, red eyes from flash photography may be fixed automatically and images may be cropped (a quick and handy feature since the viewfinder and the live view image show a cropped image). Edited images will be stored as separate files, leaving the original image intact.

Since the E-330 has two memory card slots, for xD-Picture Card and Compact Flash, images may be copied from one card to another in the camera.

Prices of D-SLRs continue to fall and despite many added features, such as Live View, tiltable 2.5" LCD screen and improved image quality, I'm afraid the asking price for the E-330 is set a bit too high. The fact that the price is almost the same as the E-300 at launch, is irrelevant, as the market has changed dramatically during the past two years. Nevertheless, the E-330 offers some features the competitors don't, not to forget the dust filter, so it is understandable that Olympus wants to make an extra buck while they can.

In use
Olympus delivers the Zuiko Digital 14-45 mm f/3,5-5,6 as standard zoom with the E-330, but it may also be purchased as body only. My private Olympus E-1 has a Zuiko Digital 14-54 mm f/2,8-3,5 and this is the lens I took with me to Orlando for the PMA show. It's a considerably better lens and I will strongly recommend it as an alternative to the standard zoom.

I have two main complaints to the camera construction. The E-330 has only one dial for settings. Although perfectly located on the right thumb, I would prefer an additional dial on top of the grip for my index finger. Also, I dislike the manual eyepiece shutter as it easy to forget while swithing between the screen and the viewfinder. Konica Minolta has proved that it is possible to make an automatic switch, although not including an eyepiece shutter.

The other buttons are easily accessible, mainly with intuitive functions. The menus look a bit old-fashioned, but they have large and contrasty letters and simple navigation.

Compared to competing models, the viewfinder of the E-330 is considerably smaller, I would imagine about the size of the E-500 (although I haven't had the chance to compare them side-by-side). The viewfinder image is also considerably darker. Even with a f/2.8 lens, it is darker than the EOS 350D with a f/3.5 lens. Only 95% finder view is rather normal, unfortunately.

The camera's responses are quite good, though. The auto focus has only three focus points, but the response is fast and they are quite sensitive. No AF lamp is built-in, but when the flash is activated, it will assist the AF analysis by emmitting a series of short flash bursts. This method gives a longer range than a dedicated AF lamp, but it is a bit more awkward to operate. The shutter realease has virtually immediate response.

Construction
At first glance, the E-330 looks identical to the E-300, but the E-330 has 7 mm smaller width, while the heigth and depth (thickness) are increased by 2 mm and 8 mm respectively. The weight is reduced by 30 grammes to 550 g for the camera body alone. With my favourite lens added, the ready-to-use weight is 1126 g, including battery, memory card, lens hood and strap.

The LCD screen is one of the main sales arguments for the E-330, partly due to "live view", but also because of its 2.5" size, tilting function, 160 degrees viewing angle and HyperCrystal technology. These are advantages many will appreciate, mainly because of the shear nature of live view, but also during playback and menu navigation.

The other essential improvement is the image sensor, which has high resolutionm high sensitivity, low image noise and equipped with the patented Olympus ultrawave dust filter. The image processor is also a factor that speaks in favour of the E-330.

In my opinion, though, the FourThirds lens system is the best reason of them all to go for the E-330 or any other E-System camera. All lenses are designed for digital imaging and are on par or superior to any comparable lenses of other brands. Besides, they are smaller and lighter and generally comes at a lower price.

First impression
I have used the Olympus E-330 for nearly two weeks, one week in Florida and one week at home. As a great fan of the FourThirds system, it was easy for me to fall in love with the camera's compact design, its fast responses and outstanding image quality. Although I still need to do my regular in-depth tests and meticulous analysis of test results and images, it is clear to me that the new Live MOS image sensor is a giant leap in the right direction.

I also have no major critisism to the E-330's user friendliness. The viewfinder is a weak point and since I hardly ever use the LCD screen during shooting, it was a big disappointment, although no surprise. However, the honest truth is that I didn't realize how small it was until I compared it to the Canon EOS 30D, and later to several other cameras. A particular and experienced SLR user would certainly react in a negative fashion, but those used to a conventional optical viewfinder in a compact camera will find it enormous. All in all, I think the E-330 is a perfect combination of two benefits, for those who find it hard to view with one eye and/or are used to an LCD screen and a regular optical viewfinder.

The camera used in this preliminary review arrived just before my departure to PMA (actually picked up at the airport). It is one of the first mass produced specimens, therefore no restrictions or limitations apply to the publication of the images. Based on the shots made so far, there should be no reason for this either. The camera has worked perfectly (even at minus 11 degrees Celcis for six hours) and none of the images have artifacts related to camera performance.

All published pictures were shot in "Vivid" mode, which is the camera's standard mode, stored as JPEG SHQ and RAW. No software were delivered with the camera and Adobe Camera RAW is still not updated to handle E-330 RAW images, so my evaluation of the image quality is exclusively based upon the JPEG files.

A comprehensive review of the Olympus E-330 will follow as soon as possible.

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