Olympus E-3

Reviewed August 2008

Characteristics

The Olympus E-3 has a Live MOS 4/3 sensor with a diagonal measure of 33.9 millimeters and an effective pixel count of 10.1 million. The sensor is roughly 22% smaller than a 35mm film frame, which has a diagonal measure of 43.26mm.

The CMOS sensor found in the E-3 is the product of a partnership with Panasonic and is designed to provide better performance in low-light conditions, wider dynamic range and faster data transfer speeds than sensors in other E-series Olympus models like the E-410 and E-510.

At the heart of the E-3 is Olympus's TruePic III processor. Actually, the TruePic is three processors. One supports high-speed sequential shooting, another manages the camera's image stabilization system and advanced noise filter technology and the third is dedicated to the unit's autofocusing system.

The division of processing tasks contributes to speedy performance. With a freshly charged battery, startup time for the camera, as well as the time between shots, was 1.4 seconds.

The camera can capture images in 28 combinations of size and compression, as well as supporting the creation of RAW files. Sizes are organized into three categories large (3648 x 2736), medium (3200 x 2400, 2560 x 1920 and 1600 x 1200) and small (1280 x 960, 1024 x 768 and 640 x 480). Each picture size has four levels of compression Super Fine, Fine, Normal and Basic. In Super Fine mode, compression ratios range from 1.4:1 to 1.7:1; Fine compression, 2.2:1 to 2.6:1; Normal compression, 4.0:1 to 5.3:1; and Basic compression, 4.4:1 to 8.1:1.

Olympus E-3 File Compression

As you may imagine, finding a particular quality setting for more than 28 choices can be challenging and Olympus's fractured menu system makes it even more so. You never have quick access to more than nine quality settings at one time. And of those nine settings, only four are customizable. The customizable settings consist of an image size and a compression factor. For example: large, 3648 x 2736 and Super Fine. To change a customizable setting, you need to consult one menu to pick an image size--large, medium or small--and a compression quality setting--Super Fine, Fine and so forth. To choose an image size, you have to navigate in yet another menu where choices such as 3648 x 2736, 3200 x 2400 etc. are available. Needless to say, altering customized settings on the fly is at best cumbersome and at worst, painfully annoying. What's more, the camera's documentation, which, for the most part, is clear and thorough, is woefully confusing when it comes to this process. It was so inadequate that I had to seek answers through Google and the Internet.

This Olympus DSLR can store images on either xD cards or CompactFlash media. On a 1GB xD card 147-687 JPG large-format stills can be stored; 187-3198 medium-format photos; and 1230-12,793 small-format images. The same size card will hold 91 RAW pictures.

Shots in the E-3 can be framed in the optical viewfinder or via Live View on its LCD display.

When looking through the camera's viewfinder, you can see the following information about the shot:

The ISO auto feature can be modified in a number of ways. For example, you can place a ceiling on the highest ISO setting used in auto mode. You can also choose what default ISO setting will be used in that mode. After defining the parameters for auto ISO, you can pick where they should be applied. You can apply them to all the camera's exposure modes or limit them to the P/A/S (Program/Aperture Preferred/Shutter Preferred) modes.

The E-3 has a TTL phase-contrast detection focusing system with support for 11 autofocusing points.

Five autofocusing modes are available and they can be accessed in three ways. Modes can be chosen by pressing the AF button located on top of the camera beside the flash housing, through the Super Control Panel or through the menu system. AF modes available are autofocus, continuous autofocus, manual focus, autofocus with manual focus adjustment and continuous autofocus with manual focus adjustment.

In autofocusing mode, partially depressing the shutter button will lock the focus on a subject in a scene. When focus is achieved, a green dot will appear on the left side of the viewfinder and the camera will beep. In low light conditions, if the unit has difficulty focusing, the flash can be used as an AF illuminator.

In continuous autofocusing mode, when the shutter button is partially depressed, the camera will continually try to focus on the subject--even when it's moving.

Manual focusing can be accomplished by rotating a ring at the front of the lens. How the ring adjusts the focus point during manual focusing can be modified through the menu system. When using manual focusing, the focusing confirmation light will light up when a subject is in focus.

Manual focusing can also be used in combination with the autofocusing system. In autofocusing mode, manual focusing can be used to fine tune the focus of a shot. In continuous autofocusing mode, after establishing an initial focus by partially depressing the shutter button, manual focusing can be used on a subject.

There is also a Single Target Mode. It uses a single target for establishing focusing information. Single target points for a shot can be selected by using the target button at the top right corner at the back of the camera, as well as from the Super Control Panel or the menu system.

Shutter speeds for the E-3 range from 1/8000 to 60 seconds. The DSC also has a Bulb mode, which allows you to expose a photo for as long as you can hold down the shutter button.

The E-3 has three sequential shooting modes.

There's one shot at a time. Each time the shutter button is fully depressed a single shot is captured.

There's a high sequential shooting mode. Images are captured at five frames a second for as long as you keep the shutter button depressed.

And there's a low sequential shooting mode, which can be customized from the camera's menu system. In this mode, one to four frames per second can be captured.

When shooting in sequential mode and using the S-AF and MF focusing settings, focus, exposure and white balance are locked at the first shot.

The E-3 offers five metering modes.

With Digital ESP metering, the camera measures the light levels and calculates the differences in 49 separate areas of the image. By synchronizing the DSC's AF mode with ESP metering the camera will center the exposure setting at the AF target that's in focus for the shot.

Center Weighted Averaging Metering averages the exposure between the subject and the background lighting, placing more weight on the subject at the center of the shot. This method is useful when you want to minimize the effect of background lighting on the overall exposure of the image.

Two combinations of Spot Metering can help control the highlights and shadows in a photo. With Spot Metering and highlight control, you can produce better whites in a photograph where you have a bright background. Without this mode enabled, whites in a shot with such a background tend to become gray. Spot Metering with shadow control helps keep the blacks from becoming gray in an image with a dark background.

Automatic exposure settings can be altered to exposure compensation. That feature allows you to underexpose or overexpose a shot by up to five stops. You can directly access the exposure compensation feature by pressing the exposure compensation button found just above the shutter release at the top of the camera. Rotating the main dial found at the back of the camera to the left will underexpose a shot; moving it to the right, overexpose it.

The camera also has an auto exposure bracketing feature. When that feature is enabled, the camera will take three successive shots at different exposures--one at optimum exposure, one overexposed and one underexposed. The degree to which a shot is overexposed or underexposed can be set through a menu item. If the camera is in single shot mode, each press of the shutter button will capture a frame at a different exposure for the bracket. If the camera is in a sequential shooting mode, you simply hold the shutter button down until the three shots in the bracket are captured.

In different shooting modes, exposure is compensated in different ways. In Program Mode, for example, both aperture and shutter speed are used in the exposure calculation. In Aperture Mode and Manual Mode, only the shutter speed is used when exposure compensation is enabled. And in Shutter Mode, the aperture value is used for exposure compensation.

The unit uses a lithium ion battery for portable power. A charger for recharging the battery is included with the camera. It can also run directly from a wall outlet through an optional AC adapter.

Battery life is good. On one occasion, I used a camera daily for 15 days and shot more than 280 pictures before having to recharge the battery.

The DSC has a built-in pop-up flash and a hot shoe for an external flash. The effective range of the built-in flash varies according to ISO setting and aperture value. It can be as far as 30 feet at F/8 and ISO 3200 to as little as 1.9 feet at F/22 and ISO 100.

Another flash mode is red-eye reduction. In this mode a series of pre-flashes are emitted before the primary flash fires. Care must be taken to hold the camera steady because it takes about one second for the shutter to be released after the series of pre-flashes.

The DSC has three slow sync flash modes.

In Slow mode, the camera uses lower shutter speeds to bring out details and an image of a subject against a dark background. This can be effective when taking night shots.

In Slow/2nd Curtain, the flash fires just before the shutter closes. This is usually used to capture motion effects at night. For example, the streaking lights of nighttime traffic can be shown this way.

To eliminate shadows on a subject's face or compensate for color shifting produced by some artificial lighting, the camera has a Fill-in flash mode. In this mode, the unit automatically sets the shutter speed to 1/250 or less.

Recycle times with the built-in flash and a newly charged battery were around 1.6 seconds.

The intensity of the built-and flash can be increased or decreased through the camera's Flash Intensity Control function. This function can be accessed by pressing the Flash Intensity Control button located on the left side of the viewfinder housing, through the Super Control Panel or via the menu structure.

Flash bracketing is also available with the camera. It allows you to shoot three sequential frames at different flash exposures. The first shot is at a flash intensity deemed optimal by the camera for the scene. The second shot reduces the flash intensity. The third shot increases it. The degree that the intensity is increased or decreased can be set manually through the menu system.

The E-3 supports a number of standards. They include DPOF, NTSC/PAL, Print Image Matching III, USB 2.0 and PictBridge.