Street Shooter: Part 2

The last post was all about how I came to the conclusion that I needed another camera (go figure), and what that camera should be..... This time, I'm actually going to talk about that camera, in-depth (more or less). Of course the camera is the E-330, the fourth of Olympus' digital offerings after they decided to get into the interchangeable lens DSLR game. Of course they had already been involved in DSLRs for some time with the very well thought of, E-10 & E-20; however, the marketplace was passing them by in terms of features, convenience and price. High-end/professional DSLRs had been around for some time pioneered by the Nikon D1, but it was when Canon dropped the Digital Rebel XT (350D) bomb in 2003 that the lower end of the market exploded. Then, Nikon answered with the D70 in January of 2004, the full-on interchangeable lens DSLR wars were on....and has raged unabated ever since.
These cameras defined the "entry level" of the digital imaging market. They didn't have the high megapixels, plethora of features or the outrageous magnification capabilities of the "Super-zoom" cameras, but what they did have was outstanding images, combined with an ease of use that had every other soccer mom/dad out there (who in the old days would have never bought an SLR) using them. Sure, corners were cut: porropisms (vs. glass pentaprisms), no anti-shake control, plastic bodies/lens mounts and lower resolution. However, this last difference turn out to be one of the major reasons why they were so successful. When you take the much smaller sensors used in the "point & shoot", as well as "superzoom" cameras, crank up (crowd lots of photosites) megapixel on them, they actually performed worse than the often less expensive DSLRs with a lower resolution! So you had Nikon D40s and Canon Rebel XTs selling for $5-600 at Walmart (with kit lens) out performing $1000 "superzooms"!
Now, everybody wanted to get in on that market segment. Although the profit margin was nowhere near the high end multi-thousand dollar professional and prosumer cameras, they sold a whole bunch more of them! This drove and has continued to drive the market ever since, with Pentax, Minolta/Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and everybody else jumping in. After all, there's only so much money that can be made by selling "point and shoot" cameras in the $50-150 market space!
So Olympus stood at a crossroads in the early part of the 2000s. As nice as the E-20N was at the time of it's introduction in 2001, it was pretty evident that they needed to respond to what was happening in the market. The first order of business was a professional/prosumer model in the E-1 of 2003, but that certainly didn't address the high volume and increasingly lucrative segment of advanced amateur camera that was gaining steam seemingly on a daily basis. Olympus introduced their answer in November of 2004 in the form of the E-300.These two were the first efforts in the use of the "Four-Thirds" standard that Olympus pioneered along with a consortium of other manufacturers such as Kodak (maker of the original 4/3 sensors), lens maker Sigma and eventually Panasonic partnered with Leica. A year after the introduction of the E-300, came the E-330 AND the much more conventional looking E-500 so that Olympus could tap the entry segment of the DSLR market. Ultimately, it was this design direction that ended up killing the E-3xx line making the E-330 the last of it's breed.

OK, now that you've had a quick rundown the Olympus history in the DSLR market, we can talk more about the E-300/330 model. The fact of the matter is that, although they were highly acclaimed by reviewers, they just didn't sell very well. This can be confirmed by a virtual trip to eBay or Craig's List to do a quick search. You'll find WAY fewer E-3xx camera for sale at any given time than their market contemporaries such as Canon Digital Rebels/XT, or the Nikon, D40/50/70. I would suspect that a lot of it has to do with the psychology of the consumer in that market space. These were often first time SLR buyers; film or digital. So, if they were going to spend the extra money it took to upgrade over a point & shoot, they wanted everyone to know what they were using. That certainly wasn't a DSLR that didn't look like one, no matter how it performed!

However, on the flip-side, look at what the E-330 was offering in 2006 in terms of features compared to its market dominating rivals (Canon Digital Rebel XT/350D or Nikon D70S) at the time of it's introduction. The E-330 had a 7.5Mp sensor which was marginally lower than the class-leading Canon's 8Mp, but we all know that in the reality of the DSLR world, small resolution differences aren't really relevant. However, the Olympus offered not only an ultrasonic sensor cleaning function that didn't become an industry standard for several more years, plus it offered their second generation of sensor-shift/anti-shake compensation that virtually no one else had. Then throw in the two features (Live View & Articulated LCD) that nobody else had at all(and wouldn't for several years); you end up with a DSLR that was well ahead of its time. Of course this is not new for Olympus which is a company of engineers, led by engineers. Back in the early 70's, they introduced the OM-1 which was the first of the "compact" SLRs on the market and started that trend. This was followed by the OM-2 which introduced full-blown electronics to that segment of the market as well as through-the-lens flash metering.

From the standpoint of just purely a camera,the E-330 has plenty enough pixels to be effective. Remember, I've been using a Nikon D70S at 6Mp for some time and it's done a creditable job any time that I have. This camera at 7.5Mp is more than enough for a second camera.Although it's size really isn't much smaller than the mid-sized Nikon; the E-330 5.5" x 3.4" x 2.8"/1.4lbs, vs. D70 at 5.5" x 4.4" x 3.1"/1.3lbs, that middle dimension of 1" less by eliminating the pentaprism hump is significant. It's my opinion that this is true both in terms of actual, and perceived bulk, but also what a live subject senses when the camera is aimed at them. When combined with the use of the articulated screen (although it's only on a vertical plane) and Live View, the ability to photograph candidly is greatly enhanced. I don't have anything to prove this hypothesis at this point, but I'm as sure of this as I can be....at least until I get my hands on one and try it.

To complete the concept, you throw on the very small 25mm/f2.8 (Angle of view same as 50mm on 35mm camera) that Olympus introduced in early 2008; you have a light, relatively compact camera with full DSLR capabilities configured to be almost ideal for "street shooting". Sure; I get that I could go out and buy the Olympus EP-L1 in the mirrorless "Micro-Four/Thirds mount for a similar price-point. Although we are talking a significantly smaller (probably pocketable) camera built on the same sized, but higher resolution sensor, That camera is designed as a step-up for folks moving from the P&S and thus has way too much automation for the way I like to shoot. And yes; there are others of the M3/4 cameras that offer what I want in terms of control set, but at this point, we are still talking in the north of $500 range that I can't justify.
So, for now, the E-330 will be the next "target of opportunity" for me. So stay tuned and I'll update when I've actually gotten my mitts on one of these curious beasts!