Olympus E-300. Oh, what a camera!

Kate-the-Great

Kate-the-Great

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Bought an E-300 on Adorama for 35$ with the intention of putting a monochrome sensor in it- but now I think I need to get a second E-300 for mono and keep one as color, because oh my does it make gorgeous images.

I'm officially hooked on Kodak CCDs now. Simply stunning. The sensor is a KAF-8300CE full-frame-transfer model, for those curious.

Nikkor 20mm f/4 and Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5. Adapter carefully shimmed to allow accurate scale-focusing.


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Had an E300 also, sold it when I bought an E410 and wish I'd didn't. Your right, better sensor. Although I liked the live view and small size of the 410 but not much else.
 
The size of the E-4x0 series is much nicer than the bulky E-300 (it's almost as big as my 5D!) but yes, the CCDs give a much different look than the early Panasonic LiveMOS sensors.

I briefly used an Oly E-PL2 with the 12MP Panasonic MOS sensor and it's images never caught my eye that much. Low contrast that couldn't be increased much without causing artifacting, abrupt highlight clipping, terrible noise even at base ISO and color rendition that I couldn't stand (the greens stand out as particularly awful- foliage invariably came out an awful fluorescent color). If the E-410 is similar I can see why you would miss your E-300!
 
The E400 has a 10 MP CCD sensor, produces the same beautiful colours as the E1 and E300, is the same size as the E410, E420 etc, but does not have live view. You can but them for very little money.
 
Gid said:
The E400 has a 10 MP CCD sensor, produces the same beautiful colours as the E1 and E300, is the same size as the E410, E420 etc, but does not have live view. You can but them for very little money.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been considering an E-400 for that reason. The only issue is, they were only sold in Europe, so a bit harder to find in the US. :(
 
About the only thing I now use my 410 for is as a meter for my film cameras, or set up on a copy stand to copy my half frame and smaller negatives. I use an adapter to mount a Vivitar 55mm f2.8 macro, it will focus to 1:1 and I can use extension tubes for higher than 1:1 reproduction. This is where the magnified live view comes in handy for focus.
 
Thanks dfatty :) There's something special about the Kodak/Olympus colors I think. I could never quite get colors I liked from the CCD sensor in a D200 I once owned, although I did love the color from the Epson R-D1 and it's Sony CCD. I wonder if the Pentax 645D with the Kodak KAF-40000 FFT CCD makes colors this nice? Of course, that would cost a bit more than 35 dollars ;)

I'll try and post more samples tonight if the light is good when I go up on the roof later :)
 
The E-300 has the same mirror box and shutter assembly (with the weird sideways swinging SLR mirror) as the Panasonic L1 and Leica Digilux 3 (which is just a rebadged L1 - supposedly with different firmware). I do not know if they all share the same sensor but I will say this. Even today the L1 (which I own) also produces lovely tones and colors if you keep the ISO below 400 and get the exposure right. So it would not surprise me to find they all do share this as well.

One lens you may wish to look out for and which should be available cheaply is the Olympus 35mm f3.5 for 4/3 cameras. Its a very nice sharp lens. Its designed as a macro lens but works well as a standard lens on this range of cameras although it is somewhat slow for a prime.

Photozone says this of it " The Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm f/3.5 macro is almost a no-brainer for four-thirds users with an interest in macro photography. The lens is very sharp straight from f/3.5 all the way up till about f/11. Neither distortions nor lateral CAs are really field-relevant and vignetting is nothing to worry about either. The lens is also capable of delivering a very smooth bokeh which is certainly an important aspect for a macro lens."

I still use mine with a 4/3 to M4/3 autofocus adapter on later cameras designed for M4/3 standard. (It does focus somewhat slowly in AF mode in this configuration though)
http://www.photozone.de/olympus--four-thirds-lens-tests/473-oly_35_35
 
peterm1 said:
The E-300 has the same mirror box and shutter assembly (with the weird sideways swinging SLR mirror) as the Panasonic L1 and Leica Digilux 3 (which is just a rebadged L1 - supposedly with different firmware). I do not know if they all share the same sensor but I will say this. Even today the L1 (which I own) also produces lovely tones and colors if you keep the ISO below 400 and get the exposure right. So it would not surprise me to find they all do share this as well.

One lens you may wish to look out for and which should be available cheaply is the Olympus 35mm f3.5 for 4/3 cameras. Its a very nice sharp lens. Its designed as a macro lens but works well as a standard lens on this range of cameras although it is somewhat slow for a prime.

Photozone says this of it " The Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm f/3.5 macro is almost a no-brainer for four-thirds users with an interest in macro photography. The lens is very sharp straight from f/3.5 all the way up till about f/11. Neither distortions nor lateral CAs are really field-relevant and vignetting is nothing to worry about either. The lens is also capable of delivering a very smooth bokeh which is certainly an important aspect for a macro lens."

I still use mine with a 4/3 to M4/3 autofocus adapter on later cameras designed for M4/3 standard. (It does focus somewhat slowly in AF mode in this configuration though)
http://www.photozone.de/olympus--four-thirds-lens-tests/473-oly_35_35
Click to expand...

I've heard a lot of good things about the L1, it seems to have a bit of a following on RFF :)

If I do end up getting a native-mount lens for the E-300, it'll likely be the Panasonic 25mm 1.4, to give some better potential for low-light shooting. The 35mm macro sounds nice but I've never felt I "see" well with that FOV.
 
This was my first digital SLR. My first foray into photography. I still have the camera, maybe I should bring it out. I need a nice 50mm F2 equivalent lens for it. My style has changed a lot since then. I've dropped digital all together and been shooting film exclusively since 2011. Anyways it was fun to dig these images up.

2006
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2008
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2009
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2011 The last time I used the camera seriously.
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Nice! The lightning shot is great, and I love love the colors in the last image. I need to do more tests, but I think that CCD cameras render those late-evening gradients different than CMOS. I know I've heard that from other photogs...

One more from the other day I forgot about


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I agree! The camera came out in what, 2003? I used it right up until 2011 without any problems. I did find that there was something about the E300 that drew me to it. The RD-1 had the same qualities. Is the RD1 not a kodak sensor as well?

How are you adapting your nikon lenses over? If I could find something budget that I could get some good glass on the camera I would.
 
BLKRCAT said:
I agree! The camera came out in what, 2003? I used it right up until 2011 without any problems. I did find that there was something about the E300 that drew me to it. The RD-1 had the same qualities. Is the RD1 not a kodak sensor as well?

How are you adapting your nikon lenses over? If I could find something budget that I could get some good glass on the camera I would.
Click to expand...

The R-D1 has a Sony CCD (same sensor as Nikon D100), but I agree that its color rendition is similar to the E-300. I miss my R-D1 :(

I'm using an F->4/3 adapter from Shenzhen, about 15 USD through Ebay! The rubbish 4/3rds viewfinders are too small for manual focusing; I anticipated this and shimmed my adapter to allow the lenses to be accurately scale focused (the adapter initially allowed focusing beyond infinity, as is usually the case)

I have seen chipped adapters that purport to allow in-finder focus confirmation on Olympus bodies but I don't know how well those work. The chipped adapters I use on my 5D are hit-or-miss with fast lenses or in low light.
 
Hi Kate-the-Great.. and any others w experience in this area,

On the basis of your posts, especially the photos, I secured an E300, intending to use it w OM lenses. Those, too, will require shimming.

Could you tell me if the shims go between body and adapter, adapter and lens, or elsewhere?
And any other points you wish to pass on -- materials, etc.

Thanks.

Giorgio
 
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