Olympus Evolt E-330 camera kit review

Finally, Olympus provides the kind of depth on these features that more advanced photographers crave. For example, simultaneous raw-plus-JPEG capture; the ability to fine-tune and save contrast, sharpness, saturation and white-balance bias settings; five types of bracketing, including focus and flash; depth-of-field preview; shading compensation, which can offset vignetting (darkening) around the edges of a lens; and an antishock mode, which increases the interval between shutter release and mirror movement to minimise camera shake during long exposures.

Of course, there's also a variety of options surrounding the LCD Live View operation. There are two Live View modes -- one that operates much like a standard snapshot camera and directs you to close the built-in viewfinder cover (to prevent light leakage), and a second that locks up the mirror to prevent camera shake. Live View Boost makes the LCD easier to see in dim light by providing a grainy black-and-white display. You can also turn it all off and use the viewfinder.

One interesting note about the Live View is that we didn't use it in the manner that we had expected. We had envisioned it as a way to get an accurate preview of scene exposure since the most common need for reshooting stems from incorrect or unsatisfactory exposure. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't work for that. For instance, scenes that looked correctly exposed on the LCD were so underexposed that they looked black. However, we found ourselves using the display's tilting capability to experiment with odd angles simply not seen with a viewfinder, as well as for casual shots.

Performance
Although we'd hardly call the Olympus Evolt E-330's performance subpar, taken as a whole, it is the weaker aspect of the system.

Shooting performance is acceptable but far from best in class. From power-on to first shot takes about 1.7 seconds -- longer than most recent dSLRs but hardly an eternity. This is understandable since the camera has two sensors and an LCD to initialise, unlike other models. Its shutter lag of about 0.5 seconds in good light nudges up to 0.7 seconds in dim light. Though it lacks an autofocus-assist lamp, if you pop the flash up, it will strobe enough illumination for the focusing system to get a lock. If you want to shoot with available light, you have to remember to turn the flash off while it's up.

Regardless of file format -- JPEG, TIFF, or raw -- the E-330 can take single shots 0.8 seconds apart, using the flash bumps shot-to-shot time up to just 0.9 seconds. In continuous-shooting mode, it can maintain a 3fps rate for considerably more than 100 JPEG frames, but that drops to a 4-frame limited 2.1fps for full-size files.

Shooting speed  (Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Raw shot-to-shot time

Typical shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim light)

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (silver)

0.4 

0.3 

0.2 

0.2 

0.2 

Nikon D70s

1.1 

1.1 

0.6 

0.6 

0.4 

Olympus Evolt E-330

0.8 

0.8 

0.7 

1.7 

0.5