Olympus E-300 EVOLT review, part 2…

(Continued from Part I...)

The DSLR market… heck, the whole digital camera market …was way different in 2004 than it is now. It’s even different than it was in the mid ‘teens before cheap digicams were crushed by the increasing abilities of camera phones.

Due to the price of sensors, early DSLRs were marketed directly to professional photographers, the sort of people who could write off camera purchases on their taxes as a legitimate business expense. Sure, some well-heeled amateurs bought the early Nikon D1’s and Canon D30’s in 1999-2000, but interchangeable lens digital cameras remained a phenomenon reserved for people who could blow quite a wad on one. 

By early 2004, the first “inexpensive” DSLRs had hit the market from Canon and Nikon. The Digital Rebel from Canon (sold elsewhere as the 300D) stickered for right at a grand with a kit zoom lens, and Nikon’s D70 went for the same sticker price for just the body; adding a lens to the Nikon took the tariff to twelve ninety-nine.

Looking back at the DSLR market from its sunset years, it’s common to refer to the lowest price models in any manufacturer’s catalog as “entry” or “beginner” cameras, but you couldn’t really classify these cameras that way, since they had to serve two market niches. One niche may have been actual beginners, but the other was photography enthusiasts who just hadn’t been convinced to spring for a “serious” digital camera yet.

Bear in mind that the thousand dollar Rebel or D70 in 2004 was selling for the equivalent of sixteen hundred bucks in 2023 dollars.  These days that’s a sum of money that will get you solidly into the ranks of “prosumer” cameras.

When Olympus jumped into this market in 2004 with their second DSLR, the EVOLT E-300, they had to make a camera that wouldn't intimidate novices, but would offer enough control to avoid alienating advanced amateurs.

So the dial on the top offers the usual PASM modes for the latter, as well as the little icons of a face, a mountain, a running dude, and the cryptic hieroglyph that signifies a backlit subject to appease the former. In addition, there's a "SCENE" setting on the dial that drops you into a menu of more than a dozen other presets, to include everything from "fireworks" and "night portrait" to "museum" and "document".

Bobbi's rental Tiguan in the foreground, my '94 GT in the background
Olympus E-300 & Zuiko Digital 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 

In 2023, the E-300 has several downsides.

While it's capable of taking perfectly adequate photos in capable hands as long as one stays within its limitations, those limitations are pretty severe.

The camera's ISO range is limited to 100, 200, and 400 settings, and the vintage Four Thirds CCD-type sensor is hella noisy by the time you're at 400. Compounding this problem is the fact that, if you pick up a used example and nobody's bothered to update its BIOS, it will only work with the old Four Thirds kit lenses that existed when it was new. I have several good pieces of fast Four Thirds glass, but the first time I tried mounting the 12-60mm f/2.8-4 on the camera, I thought I'd bricked it. It took turning it off and removing the battery for a hard reset to get the thing up and running again.

Further, the Porro finder is a dim and cramped little tunnel that will leave you pining for the subpar pentamirrors found on a D3000 or Rebel XTi.

All in all, unless you are just chasing a retro experience for giggles, collecting old Olympus DSLRs, or trying something a little challenging, I'd probably pass on an E-300 for actual use.

My pal Bug behind the bar at Fat Dan's in SoBro.
Olympus E-300 & Zuiko Digital 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6