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Olympus E30 12.3MP Digital SLR with Image Stabilization (Body Only)
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 (27 Reviews)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews:
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 Five Stars, January 04, 2016
By Anita L.
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Still going strong after 7 years!
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love it., June 03, 2015
By KOJI OHMURA
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Much better than I expected!!! Tjank you so much for the great price.
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review of olympus e30., March 04, 2014
By m garcia
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I have always liked Olympus cameras I already own an e410.but found it was not quite good enough for night shooting.And I heard the e30. was better. On the down side. The e30 is heavier and kind of bulky. I have not used it in the month I have owned it. because of the bad weather. but with spring coming. and here in central Texas. It will be wildflower season. I really look forward to working with it. Though there are much faster cameras and more advanced ones. It is finally the person behind the camera that makes the difference. and I would recommend the Olympus models to anyone.
0 of 1 people found the above review helpful.
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Super purchase, November 14, 2013
By John R. Siberski (Cambridge, MA United States)
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Recently purchased the E-30 (Used) to replace or complement my six year-old E-510. The learning curve was about five minutes. A few controls were switched around for the better. Excellent heft and feel. Obviously accepts all of my Zuiko lenses. I am very happy with the quality of photos. It took a bit of time to adjust the sharpness, saturation etc. until the images emerged to my liking.
Things are a bit noisy in low light high iso conditions (iso 800). One of the things that was absent on the 510 is iso settings that bridge from 400 to 800. Makes a difference.
Prior to buying this I looked at the Olympus OM-D mirrorless. I liked it at first but on the return trip from the camera store realized that it felt like a toy in my hands, had an insufficient sized grip and would have cost a fortune above the purchase price for lenses or adapters, extra batteries etc. i researched this and remain very pleased. I wasn't keen on the electronic view finder.
Highly recommended. Hoping to use this for a long time.
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Several years with the E30 Digital SLR, July 20, 2013
By Stephanie Sullivan (Boston, MA USA)
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My E30 was purchased in 2010 to replace a venerable E500 which did not have image stabilization. I paired the E30 with a Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 Digital ED SWD Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras which is a superb lens.
Another lens I use is the Olympus E 9-18mm f/4.0-5.6 Zuiko Lens for Olympus Digital SLR Cameras for wide angle work - mainly building interiors and landscapes. It has some distortions at the wide and but these are easily corrected in the Olympus Master II software.
With the Olympus MF-1 OM Lens Adapter I can use the range of my manual OM lenses but I have to depend on manual stop-down and focus. The screen in the E30 is not very good for manual focus and there is no manual focus assist. Oh well. Still it is very good in the studio and a nice option as I have a full macro outfit from my OM4t days.
This combination is well balanced and meets most of my photographic needs. As I have been using Olympus SLR cameras since 1980 the design options almost all make sense to me. Like other have mentioned I could have skipped the XD card slot - a SD card slot would have been a better choice, but backward compatibility is a hallmark of Olympus design.
I mostly use the viewfinder, but having live-view as an option is very handy in certain situations. The built-in levels are very handy for shooting landscapes and/or panoramas.
The E500 which the E30 replaced only had a slow USB1 connection. The E30 has the much faster USB2 connection. Battery life has been excellent.
Integration with my studio flash using the PC connector has been great. I have a Novatron pack and heads for studio work.
The E30 has a larger/brighter viewfinder than the E500. A 4/3 camera will have a darker optical viewfinder than if the camera had a larger sensor. I use the Olympus EYECUP ME-1 MAGNIFIER on my E-30 and it makes a big difference for me. I really like it.
I have never run out of battery. That's remarkable compared to the E500 it replaced. The BLM-1 battery can easily handle 300 plus images.
Overall the E30 has become a good photographic partner and has exceeded my expectations.
I hope this helps someone.
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 It's simply NOT sharp. It's just not..., July 05, 2013
By D. DeBar (Pittsburgh)
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I REALLY wanted to like this camera but I simply cannot get over how soft the images are compared to my E-510. When I looked at the images coming out of the E-30 with the Zuiko 12-60mm SWD lens I knew something was definitely NOT right. The pictures looked like something was smeared on the lens or something. The hair on my dog's face wasn't nearly as sharp as it was coming from my E-510 with the same lens.
I honestly thought that I was doing something wrong or I simply hadn't found the optimal setting for the E-30 yet so I tried turning the Noise filter off among many other things. I also tried adjusting the focus in-camera but that didn't work either; the images were still soft. I tried multiple settings and performed hours of tests comparing the E-510 and the E-30 to one another only to conclude that the E-30's image quality is simply not acceptable to me.
The E-30's dynamic range, view finder, LCD screen, features, handling and auto white balance are FAR superior to the E-510s. The E-30 is a far better camera in MANY ways.... except for sharpness.
If you do not care about 100% image crop sharpness like I do, you will find that the E-30 is the camera for you. I researched why the heck the E-30 is so soft compared the E-510 and it turns out that the E-30 has a much stronger anti aliasing (AA) filter compared the the E-510 and this indeed appears to be the problem. This is not something I am willing to accept in my camera.
I would rather shoot with the E-510 because of it's superior sharpness even though I will sorely miss the E-30's better auto white balance and better dynamic range - what a shame. I just sent my E-30 back today. Sharpness is NOT something I'm willing to give up with my camera no matter how good it is and that is why I got rid of my Olympus E-30.
Your experience may be different from mine but I know that I'm certainly not the only one who's been sorely disappointed with the Olympus E-30's sharpness. Caveat emptor.
1 of 2 people found the above review helpful.
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