Olympus E-10

Functional and of absolute value

One can immediately notice that this is not among the most lightweight digital cameras available on the market. Right after unpacking the new Olympus E-10, in fact, I could appreciate its weight; however, pleasant surprises were at hand.
With a body almost completely made of aluminum, offering a robust and professional appearance, the E-10 is a 4 megapixels (2240x1680)SLR (Single Lens Reflex) digital camera, ideal for professional use. Maybe because of its professional look, every time I brought it with me I met many people who were interested in its characteristics. Functionally designed, the E-10 offers a perfect grip as well as ease of handling, despite its weight. The camera comes with a 4x optical zoom lens (9-36 mm), equivalent to a 35-140 mm lens on a 35mm camera, able to capture images with a truly incredible depth of field.
The zoom's focal length can be controlled both manually and automatically, according to need, simply by turning a selector located in proximity of the lenses. Bringing the subject in focus, however, proved harder than I thought. Despite the fact that the focus ranges from 0.6m to infinity in normal mode, I seemed unable to get clearly focused images unless the distance was of at least 1.5 m.
On the other hand, the macro mode, ideally suited to capturing details and having a focus range of between 0.2 to 0.8 m, offered a nearly perfect quality. A characteristic of the Olympus camera is that its lenses are not interchangeable with other models; while this prevents the use of previously purchased lenses, it does avoid the accumulation of dust in the image sensor. Olympus, however, offers optional wide-angle and telephoto conversion lenses, specifically designed for the E-10.
Operation is quite easy: select one of the available programs, power on, and wait for the camera to be ready to archive your masterpieces. The E-10 also provides expert users with many options for its settings, as was to be expected from a machine designed for prosumers.
Accessing the various menus is quite intuitive; they get displayed on the LCD monitor, located in the back of the camera, which can also be used as an alternative to the viewfinder. Although the image is accurate in size, the quality of the preview image could be improved. The LCD monitor can be used in different positions, either on the machine body or rotated in locked positions. The viewfinder gives images of fair quality, but in some situations, especially in poor lighting conditions, finding out whether the subject is correctly in focus can be challenging.
The E-10 is powered by 2 Lithium CR-V3 batteries, but it can also use normal alkaline batteries (4). Average battery life is good and allows a fair number of shots to be taken (over 400, according to the use of the LCD monitor). Unfortunately the camera does not come with a battery charger.
In regards to image archival, the Olympus camera can use both Compa-ctFlash Type II cards and SmartMedia Cards; the card slot is located on a side of the machine, allowing easy access. One of the least positive notes is the recommendation not to use IBM-like Microdrives that have vastly superior archival capacity. One 32MB SmartMedia card including Panorama function is supplied with the camera, providing for a number of shots ranging from two to 34 according to resolution.
Image quality is very interesting. Pictures are detailed and sharp, occasionally lacking some colour saturation. The feeling is that in some situations colours lose intensity, an inconvenience that can be digitally corrected after downloading the photo to one's computer. In poor light, the effects that can be obtained with an external flash are much better than those one can achieve with the built-in flash coming with the E-10.
The camera is perfectly compatible both with Mac and with PC platforms, only requiring the installation of the appropriate software (included on a CD-ROM) and the presence of a USB port on the computer itself. The Camedia E-10 also features NTSC video output for viewing the photos on a television set or capturing them on a VCR.
Considering its capabilities, this 4-megapixel SLR digital camera seems cheap at $1999 U.S.; other products of the same level are available for much higher prices.
Professional digital photographers and serious amateurs can get the same performance saving considerably. Despite the doubts raised by some functional choices, e.g. not using the MicroDrives, the E-10 can offer photos of absolute value.

Publication Date: 2001-10-07
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=459