Olympus E-30

Last Saturday, I purchased the E-30 from a local dealer. My old camera was a Nikon F-301, bought more than 15 years ago. Just last week, this old Nikon became faulty. I took it to Nikon's service centre to repair it, but the repair man told me it is beyond repair. I thought to myself, yeah, since I was using it almost daily from the time I bought it, now it should be the time for it to spoil and for me to buy a new one.

I went to my friends for advice about buying a new camera. Their advice was to go for a compact pocket camera. However, my heart was always on DSLR cameras. I loved them so much that even in my dreams, I also dream of them! I just adored their decent and distinct "Kachack" sound after taking a picture. So, I went everywhere to look for a nice DSLR camera. Finally, my eyes were set on an Olympus E-30 on the displays of an Olympus retail shop. I went in, asked about the features it has and the price, after about 10 minutes, the new E-30 was in my hands.

Excited, I went home and tested out its features. It has various upmarket features. Prominently, it packs a 12.3 megapixel lens, which makes every picture you take, look more artistic, even without using the PC's software. One of the features in the E-30 is Art Filters. There are six filters, namely, Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale & Light Color, Light Tone, Grainy Film and Pin Hole Camera.

The Pop Art feature enhances colors, making them more vivid, creating distinct pictures that express the joyful feelings of the Pop Art style of the retro 1960s. Use the Soft Focus with its ethereal effect that controls subjects in a heavenly light without complicating details. My favourite feature is the Pale & Light Color, which fences the foreground of an image in flat gentle light and pastel colors suggesting of a flashback scene in a movie. The Light Tone feature renders shade and highlight areas softly to create an elegant air to the subject. There's also an interesting feature called the Grainy Film , which reproduces the grainy look of black and white photos. The last feature, Pin Hole Camera ,reduces the extra brightness of an image as though it were shot through a pin hole, connecting the viewer with the subject at the centre of the picture.

Something you can do with the camera will be using its Multiple Exposures Shooting , in which you can shoot up to four images in one frame. In my opinion, I should say camera enthusiasts who like this effect will find it very convenient.

A notable technology in the E-30 will be the Face Detection And Shadow Adjustment Technology . This innovative technology can shoot up to eight faces within the image area and automatically focuses and optimizes exposure for sharp, brilliant portrait pictures.

The E-30 is able to set the aspect ratio of photos, providing nine aspect ratios including the standard 4:3, as well as 16:9 for impressive, cinematic-style images, and 6:6, which is reminiscent of classic medium-format cameras.

What I like about the camera is that we can preview the artistic effects on the LCD screen before pressing the shutter, but, the E-30 may pause for a short moment to apply the effects after pressing the shutter. There is also the Lightbox function which will let users compare two photos side by side and enlarge them in detail.

The E-30's auto-focus Live View feature has 11 focusing points. It is also consistently fast.

Final verdict

Although Olympus does not release new DSLRs as much as Canon and Nikon do, its inventive features are later used by market leaders. The E-30's artistic features and excellent auto-focus performance make the camera stand above other DSLRs.

ALSO POSTED ON CIAO.COM, UNDER THE SAME USERNAME, JudgeIronFist