The Olympus Evolt E-330 that we tested had final firmware but was an early unit -- hopefully that will account for one of the more serious glitches encountered, which concerned either the metering system or the exposure latitude. A few of photos came out vastly underexposed, far more underexposed than the scene lighting and meter readings warranted. The kit version of the Olympus Evolt E-330 ships with the Zuiko f/3.5-to-f/5.6 14mm-to-45mm (28mm-to-90mm equivalent) lens which is somewhat slow (with respect to the maximum aperture) and can't focus closer than 0.4m. Preferable is the f/2.8-3.5 14mm-to-54mm (28mm-to-108mm equivalent) lens. It's more expensive, but possible to get better exposed indoor shots more consistently with than with the 14mm-to-45mm lens, it delivers better (shallower) depth-of-field for portraits, and it allows for focusing within inches of the subject.
In general, the Olympus Evolt E-330 delivered excellent white balance and great skin tones, even with a strong flash
In general, however, the camera maintains a relatively low noise profile across all the ISO settings; noise remains generally unnoticeable up through ISO 400. Overall, our test photos indicate that the E-330's metering system has a tendency to underexpose, which is fine if you shoot raw, but there's not a lot of latitude in the shadows of the JPEG images to bring the exposure up without encountering posterising or noise. Another surprise to watch for is that the camera ships with the default sharpness set to the minimum.
Be that as it may, it was possible to shoot some very sharp, detailed images that produced excellent prints as large as 330x480mm (13x19 inches).
Additional editing by Kate Macefield
Android App 
RSS Feeds 
iPhone App 
Newsletters