Thoughts on the old Olympus 4/3 DSLRs?

[Stevenson Gawen]

I wonder if any of you have any thoughts or memories of the Oly E-series bodies.

I never had one. I was in my teens back then - my first interchangeable lens camera was the venerable Olympus E-P1 mirrorless, so I kind of missed the so-called "golden era" of DSLRs.

I vaguely remember an ad for the E-400 (the world's smallest DSLR at the time) involving or invoking James Bond in some way... can't quite place it now... did I dream it?

(edit: I think it was actually a glamorous two page spread in a magazine by a photographer with JB connections - ring any bells?)


Reason for this sudden burst of interest is that I've just bought an E-400 twin lens kit in original boxes for the grand total of £119. It was listed on Ebay for considerably more but I couldn't resist putting in a a very low offer (almost) fully expecting rejection. The seller responded with a very reasonable counteroffer and the rest, as they say, is history.

Hasn't arrived yet, but looking forward to a little bit of time traveling.

I already have a Pentax K10D at home in Australia of the same era and like it - AF can be temperamental in comparison with modern cameras, but does lovely images.

A similarity between the K10D and the E-400 is that they both have the last of the CCD sensors before everyone moved to CMOS sensors.

I don't much subscribe to the view that CCD=magic / CMOS=bad but I do like the colour output of the K10D so will be interested to try the E-400.

I know these cameras don't have much high ISO capability, even for their time, if I remember correctly, but to be honest that is now a non-issue for a second (or third or fourth..) camera that can be used when one feels like it and not when situations demand otherwise. Modern RAW processing software can also squeeze out substantially more than that of the time too.

Anyway... that's my tale.. you?

 

[Paul Taylor]

I was gifted an E500 a little while ago, I need to take it out and use it.

 

[Tony Warren]

There is an excellent article on 35mmc about just this camera. My first digital was an Olympus, the C2000Z, and the colour is very similar to the 35mmc examples. A bonus for me is that it responds to IR really well, maybe ths one will too but the IR filter was beefed up as the ranges developed.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

E500 a little while ago, I need to take it out

Yep!

There is an excellent article on 35mmc about just this camera

Thanks - I hadn't looked there. I just did a search, and the closest I could find was this one, with the E-300. Did I miss it?

bonus for me is that it responds to IR really well

Hmm. Interesting

 

[Tony Warren]

Yep!


Thanks - I hadn't looked there. I just did a search, and the closest I could find was this one, with the E-300. Did I miss it?


Hmm. Interesting

Sorry - the article is about the E-1 and discusses CCD sensors.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

Sorry - the article is about the E-1 and discusses CCD sensors.

Oh, yes, I read that one - sorry should have twigged. Another nice camera!

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

The E-400 arrived today so I took for a walk to try it out. The verdict? I like it! Definitely of its era (stating the obvious I guess!) but nice to use and nice images.

The mono shots are mostly straight out of camera on the E-400's Monochrome setting, the colour ones are RAW's processed in Darktable in my latest slightly lo-fi style

All taken on the 17.5-45mm f3.5-5.6 kit zoom - slightly soft occasionally but pretty good.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

I like the narrow focus in that first shot (and your vintage settings). Nice set of images. What did you end up paying for the kit?

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

I like the narrow focus in that first shot (and your vintage settings). Nice set of images. What did you end up paying for the kit?

Thanks £115 all up, for the body, 17.5-45mm and the well regarded 45-150 f3.5-4.5 plus a few pounds postage.

Not a tiny amount for me at present I must confess but quite good value in the general scheme of things. Original boxes too.

I'm liking the small form factor, but still getting used to having no IBIS nor high ISO capabilities

 

[Bill Watts]

I went from an E-10 (not 4/3, but probably the first real DSLR they made, had a 2/3 CCD sensor) to an E-300, E510 and finally an E-3. I also bought the "top pro" 14-35mm f2 and 35-100mm f2 lenses to go with the E-3. And to be honest I liked the cameras and their output very much. The Olympus JPEG algorithm gives, in my opinion, very good colour rendering and saturation straight out of the camera, verging on Velvia!

The E-300 looked a bit odd as it had a poro-prism viewfinder a' la Pen F series cameras rather than the more usual penta-prism found on the majority of SLRs and DSLRs.

Downside was the E-3, particularly with the two "top pro" lenses were bulky and heavy. m4/3 does have a lot going for it from that angle, almost a return to the OM [film] cameras, however with bulkier lenses, got to put the mechanics and electronics somewhere!

I stuck with the brand and moved over to an OM-D EM-5 and OM-D EM-1 and an Olympus Air A-01, all of which are still in use.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

I went from an E-10 (not 4/3, but probably the first real DSLR they made, had a 2/3 CCD sensor) to an E-300, E510 and finally an E-3. I also bought the "top pro" 14-35mm f2 and 35-100mm f2 lenses to go with the E-3. And to be honest I liked the cameras and their output very much. The Olympus JPEG algorithm gives, in my opinion, very good colour rendering and saturation straight out of the camera, verging on Velvia!

The E-300 looked a bit odd as it had a poro-prism viewfinder a' la Pen F series cameras rather than the more usual penta-prism found on the majority of SLRs and DSLRs.

Downside was the E-3, particularly with the two "top pro" lenses were bulky and heavy. m4/3 does have a lot going for it from that angle, almost a return to the OM [film] cameras, however with bulkier lenses, got to put the mechanics and electronics somewhere!

I stuck with the brand and moved over to an OM-D EM-5 and OM-D EM-1 and an Olympus Air A-01, all of which are still in use.

Nice - you've gone right through the digital era with Olympus. I've always been intrigued by the viewfinder arrangement on the E-300 - I wonder what the motivation for that was?

I currently also have an E-M5 Mark II which is great as a travel camera (and more). I kinda like the JPEGs from it, but prefer to shoot RAW anyway... it's quite hard to fully replicate the JPEGs though!

I'm waiting on an adaptor at present to mount a couple of mechanical OM lenses I now own (a 50mm f1.8 and a 65-200mm) on the E-400. Should be interesting!

 

[Bill Watts]

Nice - you've gone right through the digital era with Olympus. I've always been intrigued by the viewfinder arrangement on the E-300 - I wonder what the motivation for that was?

I currently also have an E-M5 Mark II which is great as a travel camera (and more). I kinda like the JPEGs from it, but prefer to shoot RAW anyway... it's quite hard to fully replicate the JPEGs though!

I'm waiting on an adaptor at present to mount a couple of mechanical OM lenses I now own (a 50mm f1.8 and a 65-200mm) on the E-400. Should be interesting!

It started earlier than that! I got an Olympus OM-1 for my 18th birthday in 1975! moved on with an OM-1n, 2Sp, and 2 4Tis, XA, XA-2 (Black, Red, Blue and White versions), Mju-1.

When shooting digital I generally shoot both RAW and JPG so If there is anything particularly tricky or specific I can work with the RAW files.

Got a range of Zuiko OM primes and zoom lenses and adaptors to fit both the 4/3 and m4/3 cameras.

I suspect the Porro-prism was fitted on the E-300 / E-330 to reduce the top height and make the camera less bulky.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

The E-400 arrived today so I took for a walk to try it out. The verdict? I like it! Definitely of its era (stating the obvious I guess!) but nice to use and nice images.

The mono shots are mostly straight out of camera on the E-400's Monochrome setting, the colour ones are RAW's processed in Darktable in my latest slightly lo-fi style

All taken on the 17.5-45mm f3.5-5.6 kit zoom - slightly soft occasionally but pretty good.
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I like p7050113-jpg, but still I don't understand why you bought this camera,Steve It doesn't seem so good to me. Just my point of view, feel free to ignore it.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

I got an Olympus OM-1 for my 18th birthday

Lucky you

still I don't understand why you bought this camera,Steve It doesn't seem so good to me.

Ah. You have a habit of making observations that run deeper than they seem, Gianluca! (in a good way!)

You're absolutely right of course, compared to a decent modern(er) camera (like my Nikon D750 for example) the little E-400 is about 3 times harder to use and gives images of 1/3rd the quality - the screen on the back is terrible, no live view, usable ISO limit is about 400 for most purposes, a RAW file takes about 10 seconds to write to the chunky CompactFlash card, etc. etc.

So why indeed?

I think there's two reasons. 1. I'm belatedly living the dreams of my teenage years, when I pored over all the photography magazines I could get and drooled over the state of the art DSLRs I couldn't afford. Now I can (sometimes!)

And as 2. perhaps a better reason. I like the challenge. Same reason I've dabbled (and still am) in film. The sense of achievement when an image from inferior equipment comes out well is intoxicating, which in turn inspires me to take more images and I think it's beneficial for my photography in general actually. And more importantly it's fun!

That's all getting a bit highbrow... but I think that's the basic principles anyway. Perhaps a 3rd reason is just plain old desire to try more stuff, or 'GAS' as some call it.

Sorry about the slow reply - I'm still intending to reply to your comment in the other thread - it's just that things are a bit busy at present.

P.S. all this is not to belittle (as if I could!) the 'one camera one lens' approach which I think is a wholly more noble aim...

 

[Gianluca Drago]

And more importantly it's fun!

Dear Steve. It's reassuring reading your honest reply to my (honest) comment, it means you didn't take it wrong. My intent was well-intentioned and perhaps motivated to avoid you going down the GAS path (sorry, sometimes I am a bit moralistic and tend to mind other people's business, which is not good).
If you enjoy yourself that's fine, I'm sure what's good about these photos is your photographic eye and editing, and what's not good about them is the camera itself.

The comparison to film doesn't quite convince me, but given your age, I suppose you see both film and a digital of this date as ancient and handcrafted.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

I'm still intending to reply to your comment in the other thread

Take your time, I'm not in a hurry.

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

My intent was well-intentioned and perhaps motivated to avoid you going down the GAS path

Thanks I probably do need reminding occasionally!

what's not good about them is the camera itself.

Hopefully not... in fact, I think that's related to one of my comments above. If I can take a good image on a worse camera I feel like a better photographer. But no, I don't take it too seriously.

comparison to film doesn't quite convince me, but given your age, I suppose you see both film and a digital of this date as ancient and handcrafted.

... no, but seriously, I honestly don't see either as ancient or handcrafted. I think of 'em both as variations on a craft/art/whatever.

I suppose a bit like watercolours, oil paintings and pencil sketches are all variations on 'human making image' I view all the different kinds of photographic mediums as variations on 'human makes image using box' . Sure, some are harder than others, but I just like trying different variations on it.
That was the similarity I was commenting on, that both 'old' digital and film, while being very different from each other, are both 'a change' from my 'normal', more modern digital.

Hm. What should I try next?

 

[Laurence Griffiths]

Since December 1980 I have been primarily an Olympus user. - Olympus OM2n for starters. Fairly predictably my first DSLR was an Olympus E300, followed by an Olympus E3. I still own both these cameras and, from time to time, take them out to play. To this end I always keep their batteries charged.

Sometime around 2007 I started using and keeping the ORF raw files. I use Capture One Pro for post processing work and it has support for both of these old cameras. For noise reduction, I use DxO PureRAW 4, which has support for the E3, but not for the E300. Occasionally, when reviewing some of my archival photos and coming across one (or some) which I particularly like, I get the urge to reprocess the image(s). I have found that reprocessing old raw files through modern software can breathe new life into the images. This is especially important to me for images taken of places I know I will never revisit, or of people of times gone by.

The E300 is a strange little beast, with its side-operating mirror which removes the need for a pentaprism on top. The 3 point autofocus is painfully slow, but very accurate when it locks on. Bearing in mind the sensor's high ISO limitations, I very seldom (if ever) used ISO settings of greater than 400. But, even with these limitations, the E300 with its 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens still turned out some amazingly crisp photos.

This is an SOOC image of Craig's Hut, on top of Mount Stirling in Victoria's High Country, which I took in January 2006, before it was destroyed by bushfires in December 2006:

Craig's Hut - Before the bushfires by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

This is a post processed E300 image which I took of Auckland from Mount Victoria on 9 April 2007:

Auckland - April 2007 by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

The E3 is a totally different beast. More of a traditional DSLR with few of the benefits of the smaller 4/3 sensor except for the ability to take the smaller 4/3 lenses. - Big and bulky with only a 10 megapixel sensor. But when coupled with the 12-60mm f/2.8-4 SWD kit lens it still has the ability to turn out some amazing photos.

To accompany both the E300 and later the E3, I bought the Olympus 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5 and the Olympus 70-300mm f/4-5.6 telephoto zoom lenses.

The last time that I used these two cameras for an extended period was in late 2012 during a 5 week trip to South Africa for a high-school reunion. I did a fairly extensive driving tour, knowing full well that I would probably never return.

Table Mountain:

Table Mountain by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr

​

Shelley Bay at Kenton-on-Sea, where we used to go swimming as children:

Shelley Bay, Kenton-on-Sea by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

A leopard up a tree in the Kruger National Park:
(This is when I ran up against the 70-300mm lens' shortness, combined with the 10 megapixel sensor lack of "cropability")

Lookin' at you...... by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

A hyena cub waiting on the side of the road for mum to come home with the grub:

Hyena Cub by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​