Olympus E-300. Oh, what a camera!

[Shab]

Hi Kate,

seeing your photos and comments I remenbered when I saw for first time some raw files from an E-300. Some time later I bought an E-3, thinking I would have this type of sensor... but, when I saw the first files from the E-3 I couldn't understand why Olympus changed the sensors from Kodak to Panasonic... :-(

It's true that at high ISOs the E-3 is better than the E-300, but if you don't need the High ISOs... the E-300 is much better.

And about your photos, GREAT photos! Congrats!

 

[Kate-the-Great]

Hi Kate,

seeing your photos and comments I remenbered when I saw for first time some raw files from an E-300. Some time later I bought an E-3, thinking I would have this type of sensor... but, when I saw the first files from the E-3 I couldn't understand why Olympus changed the sensors from Kodak to Panasonic... :-(

It's true that at high ISOs the E-3 is better than the E-300, but if you don't need the High ISOs... the E-300 is much better.

And about your photos, GREAT photos! Congrats!

Thanks for the kind compliment Shab!

Yeah, the LiveMOS sensors just aren't the same. The newest 16MP models are quite good I hear, but the 10 and 12MP Panny chips were not impressive.

The change, I'm sure, had to do with Olympus planning for micro-4/3rds, which by necessity can only use *MOS-type sensors as large CCDs can't do live-view very well.

And of course, the flexibility of CMOS sensors in low-light situations is desirable to modern photographers and their lower power usage and reduced complexity in terms of support circuitry is huge for enabling compact large-sensor cameras (it's a minor miracle that Olympus was able to make the CCD E-400 as small as they did, considering the sheer amount of off-chip circuitry that CCDs require for clocking, readout, A/D conversion, power delivery- before you even get to the image processing DSPs)

But CCDs will forever have a special place for me for their tonal rendition. Modern CMOS sensors are a lot like shooting color negative film- in particular the sensor in my X-E1 has a very C-41-like highlight response and color rendition- but sometimes it's fun to have the "slide film" experience of extremely careful metering resulting in stunning images basically right out of camera, and the CCD sensors I've used have given that. Very little work in Lightroom to get the images above, whereas the before/afters from my X-E1 would be barely recognizable as the same image!

 

[Kate-the-Great]

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

Hi Giorgio!

Glad to hear my photography is enticing people to make good decisions 😉

I corrected focus on my adapter by adding shims inside the adapter, underneath the lens mount. My adapter has two pieces- the body of the adapter is an aluminum disc with the 4/3rds mount machined directly into the rear. Screwed onto the front is the steel F-mount. I salvaged some brass shims from a broken Nikkor lens and inserted them between the adapter body and the lens mount, adding and removing shims while testing focus by measuring various close distances (in the case of the 20mm lens I was using, 10ft, 5ft and 3ft) and seeing if images scale-focus to those distances were sharp. A bit time-consuming but I eventually got it right and now I can scale focus no problem, the deep DOF of the 20mm Nikkor compensating for any errors I make in estimating distance.

 

[raid]

What is a good price for the E300 with and without Zuiko lenses?

 

[pagpow]

Hi Giorgio!

Glad to hear my photography is enticing people to make good decisions 😉

I corrected focus on my adapter by adding shims inside the adapter, underneath the lens mount. My adapter has two pieces- the body of the adapter is an aluminum disc with the 4/3rds mount machined directly into the rear. Screwed onto the front is the steel F-mount. I salvaged some brass shims from a broken Nikkor lens and inserted them between the adapter body and the lens mount, adding and removing shims while testing focus by measuring various close distances (in the case of the 20mm lens I was using, 10ft, 5ft and 3ft) and seeing if images scale-focus to those distances were sharp. A bit time-consuming but I eventually got it right and now I can scale focus no problem, the deep DOF of the 20mm Nikkor compensating for any errors I make in estimating distance.

Thanks, Kate,

Very helpful.

Giorgio

 

[pagpow]

What is a good price for the E300 with and without Zuiko lenses?

Hi Raid,

Can't speak to with lens prices, but Kate's original post mentions $35 from Adorama, and I got mine for 40something on the auction site.

Giorgio

 

[Kate-the-Great]

What is a good price for the E300 with and without Zuiko lenses?

I paid 35$ for mine from Adorama BUT the camera is missing the rubber from the grip and came with an aftermarket charger and battery.

The slightly newer E-500 uses the same KAF-8300CE sensor, and has a slightly brighter VF due to using a pentaprism finder instead of the E-300's Porro prism finder, but is a bit less compact I think (and I personally like the bizzare "brick" form factor of the E-300- very early-2000's retro-futuristic 😉 )

The E-300 and E-500 both go for between 50-100USD, with the E-500 having greater availability. I've often seen the E-500 kitted with the 14-45mm kit lens for hardly any more than body-only. The higher-end f/2.8-4 zooms go for a bit more as they're newer and sought out by micro-4/3rds users- but there is an 11-22mm 2.8-3.5 zoom that I hear is decent, and sells for around 250$.

If I were to get a native Zukio lens, it would be the 25mm f/2.8 pancake that shipped with the E-4x0 series- they're optically quite good, plentiful, and sell for around 100-150$.

There is also the 10MP E-400, which unlike the later LiveMOS E-410 and E-420, uses a Kodak CCD- but they were only sold in Europe and are rather rare even there. I've also heard rumors that the tonality of the images from the interline-transfer KAI-10100 are not as nice as the full-frame-transfer KAF-8300 and KAF-5101 (Oly E-1), which is a shame because the E-4x0 form factor is so compact!

To recap in case others find this thread in the future-
Olympus E-1 is 5MP FFT Kodak CCD (KAF-5101)
Olympus E-300 and E-500 are 8MP FFT Kodak CCD (KAF-8300)
Olympus E-400 is 10MP Interline Kodak CCD (KAI-10100)
ALL other Olympus 4/3rds SLRs, and ALL Panasonic 4/3rds SLRs are Panasonic LiveMOS sensors- although based on images Raid posted last month, the Panasonic 7.4MP sensor in the Oly E-330 and the Pansonic L-1 may give similar colors to the Kodak CCDs.

Sorry to bombard with information, hope this helps you and others who are interested 🙂

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Kate, I see you use Fuji as well. Any thoughts about comparing the colors from the Olympus and Fuji?

 

[rbelyell]

kate your photos and information are wonderful. i recently purchased the panny L1 with vario elmarit 14-50/2.8. i was immediately struck by the colors, very ccd-like, so vivid they quite jumped off the screen. i did a little digging and my understanding is the 'Live-Mos' sensor is a hybrid ccd/cmos that was designed to keep ccd rendering but adopt cmos higher iso quality.
tony

 

[kuzano]

I've tried three....E400 bodies....

I've tried three....E400 bodies....

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. 🙁

I've also owned three E-300 Evolts over the same span of time.

All three of the E400's were a waste of time (and money) in trying to match the E-300 Evolts...

certainly not worth it for the 2 Megapixels. I've also had the E-500 w Kodak. Same situation.

Smaller yes... but can't produce the same colors as the E-300's and E-1's I've owned.

Won't be spending more money and time looking for the E400. It is a nicer handful however, but I'm hung up on the color rendering.

 

[kuzano]

Excellent inexpensive grip kits on eBay.

Excellent inexpensive grip kits on eBay.

I paid 35$ for mine from Adorama BUT the camera is missing the rubber from the grip and came with an aftermarket charger and battery.

Fit right, easy to install. double sided install tape cut to size. Inexpensive. I've done 3 Oly E-1s with these.