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Review of Olympus Camedia E-10 Digital Camera
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© Bernhard J Suess
We're very pleased to welcome a new contributor to @PHOTO - Bernhard J Suess. To many photographers, Bernhard's name may be familiar. He's the author of two popular books on Black-and-White Photography: Mastering Black-and-White Photography: From Camera to Darkroom and Creative Black-and-White Photography: Advanced Camera and Darkroom Techniques.
Whether you've read either of Bernhard's books, we know you'll enjoy his articles on our site. Whether or not you're familiar with Mr. Suess (by the way, his last name is pronounced "Cease" rather than "Soose" as in the good Doctor Suess), you'll be interested to learn that we'll soon be offering a Course on Black-and-White Photography right here on photocourses.com. We're proud to give you advance notice that the Course will be based on the teaching, books and philosophy of Bernhard Suess. Email us at Black-and-White Course to be on the list to find out about this Course as soon as it is available. We are currently creating a special interactive component for our Black-and-White Course that will be a virtual tour of the traditional darkroom. Bernhard decided he would like to use a digital camera for the photography part of the tour, and after doing considerable research, he gave us a list of cameras that he thought would be good for the job. At the top of his list was the Olympus E-10. We contacted the folk at Olympus who were kind enough to loan us an E-10 for the project. Bernhard has made hundreds of images for the "Virtual Darkroom Tour" using the camera. What follows is his report illustrated by some sample photos he took for the Tour using the E-10. You'll have to wait a while to enroll in the Course, but you can read his review of the camera right now. Review of Olympus Camedia E-10 Digital Camera © Olympus 
I've been a photographer for more than 25 years. In that time I've learned to depend on my cameras and on my abilities to use them. At its best, the camera becomes an extension of me, the viewfinder being just another way of seeing. For me that has always been the problem with digital cameras-they were unnatural to use. I didn't like looking at a small LCD screen to check composition, focus, and exposure. In addition, the resolution was too small for anything other than web images or very small prints. My flash options were limited to the camera's built-in flash. The early cameras I tried were also auto-everything. In short, the early digital cameras were fun to play with, but they didn't come close to the experience or results I had with 35mm cameras.
The Olympus Camedia E-10 Digital Camera changes that in a big way. While the camera may seem to be relatively expensive (approximately $2000 street price), it is much less expensive than comparably equipped advanced amateur/professional level cameras. This 4-megapixel camera has the look, the feel, and the heft of a good 35mm single lens reflex. At a little over two pounds, the E-10 feels solid. When I first picked it up, I was impressed with the finish. This doesn't look like some cheap point-and-shoot camera. I wouldn't mind showing up for a professional shoot with this camera. Olympus is well known for designing excellent traditional and digital cameras. The E-10 is no exception. Its well thought-out design fits the hands nicely. On the back of the camera are function buttons that let the user control shooting modes, quality settings, and more. Once you're familiar with the camera, it's surprisingly easy to set and use. © Olympus 
Like several other Olympus cameras (and higher level digital cameras from other manufacturers) the E-10 is a single lens reflex. This means you see your subject through the lens and can photograph even with the 1.8 inch LCD monitor turned off (one of many monitor options). The monitor can be used to preview a scene or to display a shot while the camera is writing to the card. The monitor can be tilted up or slightly down to aid in shooting from unusual angles. The monitor also functions for the playback of images and can display thumbnails of existing images (four up, eight up, and sixteen up) and can zoom 1.5 X, 2X, 2.5X, 3X, or 4X. Onlookers frequently commented about the sharpness and quality of the monitor image.
Among the camera's other options are choices of resolution, compression, and image format. At its highest resolution, 2240 x 1680, with no compression the camera produces TIFF files which are approximately 11 Megabytes in size. TIFF is the only uncompressed option and it's only available for this highest resolution. When shooting TIFFs, only two images will fit on the supplied 32-megabyte 3.3V SmartMedia card. The camera will accept SmartMedia from 4MB to 64MB, as well as other media. When shooting compressed images, you can choose resolution (from 640 x 480 to 2240 x 1680) and compression (2.7:1, 4:1 or 8:1) using a menu on the LCD monitor. At the lowest resolution and highest compression the 32MB card will hold approximately 400 images. A nice feature of the camera is the ability to mix resolutions and compressions. As you make adjustments the control panel LCD atop the camera displays the number of images left. This could be very useful if, for example, you were shooting for print and needed to shoot another subject for web use. Taken with the E-10 © Bernhard J Suess 
In addition to SmartMedia, the E-10 allows you to store images on a CompactFlash card. In fact, you can have both a CompactFlash and a SmartMedia card in the camera concurrently and switch between them as you are shooting. The camera does not, however, support the increasingly popular Micro drive. To Olympus' credit, some of their older cameras can be upgraded to support newer, larger cards. This non-obsolescence policy gives one confidence in Olympus digital cameras. It's just smart not to leave older users stranded. Perhaps the E-10 will be able to use other or larger media as they become available.
Olympus has always been known for putting good glass on their cameras. That's important with this non-interchangeable zoom lens. The range is 9 to 36mm (equivalent to 35 - 140mm lens on 35mm camera), adequate but hardly phenomenal. However, for most situations the lens will be fine, especially with its f/2 to f/11 aperture range (at the telephoto setting the widest aperture is f/2.4), adjustable in 1/3 stop increments. The images from the E-10 are incredibly sharp and saturated for a digital camera. The lens can be supplemented with optional 0.8X wide, 1.45X or 3X telephoto, and macro lenses. The lens will also accommodate 62mm filters. The shutter also has a wide range, from 8 seconds to 1/640 in manual mode. There's even a bulb setting that will give you exposures up to 30 seconds (unmetered, of course). The equivalent ISO range is 80, 160, or 320, and can be selected by the user or set automatically by the camera. The exposure modes include programmed auto exposure, aperture priority, shutter priority, and manual. The meter and settings are visible with the viewfinder. That's important when you need to control the camera. The meter can be switched between Digital ESP (a multi-pattern metering system), center weighted, and spot metering. Exposure compensation in 1/3 stop increments for plus or minus 3 stops gives the user a lot of control. In addition, the camera can be programmed to automatically take three bracketed shots Taken with the E-10 © Bernhard J Suess 
The built-in flash has several modes including low light, back light, red-eye reduction, and fill flash. I loathe on-camera flash (though I must use it on occasion), and I greatly appreciate the E-10's hot shoe (at least I can bounce the flash) and particularly the external photo connector (PC) outlet. I've used the camera with my studio flash units with exceptional results. I would not buy a digital camera for serious use unless it was equipped with an external PC outlet as the E-10 is.
For those who prefer shooting with available light, the E-10 has automatic white balancing, as well as "one touch" manual using a white card, and preset manual (3000, 3500, 4000, 4500, 5500, 6500, and 7500 K). You can shoot with good results under almost any type of light source. Like most digital cameras, the Camedia E-10 has problems with noise in images shot under low light conditions. The noise in the E-10's images was not as pronounced as I've seen in some other digital cameras, but it's still a consideration. As long as you're aware of digital photography's shortcomings, this shouldn't be a problem. Taken with the E-10 © Bernhard J Suess 
Once you've recorded images, it's always a good idea to transfer them to a hard drive promptly. The included software and USB connector make this a reasonably easy task. After the software and drivers are installed, connecting the camera to a USB port allows the camera to show up as a removable drive. The images are in a "subfolder" called 100olymp and, using Windows Explorer, they can be selected and dragged to copy them to any other folder. One note, the instructions stated that Windows 98 (full install not upgraded from Windows 95) and above is needed to install the software. A system that was upgraded from Windows 95 to Windows 98 is not supposed to work with the software. Since I have such a system, I backed everything up before installing and saying a big prayer. Fortunately, the installation went smoothly and I had no problems. While the software is supposed to install under Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, and 2000, USB support is only available from Windows 98, 98 Second Edition, and 2000. I would suggest moving up to Windows 98 or above from Windows 95 before attempting to use this camera. Macintosh is supported from OS 8.6 to 9.0.4.
I found the included Olympus Camedia Master software unnecessary, though it's probably good for a novice since it allows you to preview the images before downloading them. I did not install the included Adobe Photoshop 5.0 Limited Edition, since I have a full version of Photoshop 6.0. The LE version of Photoshop is more than enough for someone casually getting into digital photography and is a nice inclusion. The Olympus Camedia E-10 instruction manual is a 200-page book that is well written and a virtual primer on digital photography. Olympus is very straightforward about limitations and warnings. As long as you're careful and follow their advice, you shouldn't let that dissuade you. Taken with the E-10 © Bernhard J Suess 
While you might think this is the perfect digital camera, there are some minor considerations. The camera functions quite well with the supplied 3 volt lithium batteries (the camera takes two), shooting several hundred photos before needing replacement. But using four AA alkaline batteries, one of several power options, can be frustrating. I was typically able to get only 30 images per set of alkaline batteries. I was using the monitor to check my shots, which admittedly uses considerable power. But focusing uses battery power, including manual focus. When you turn the manual focus, it in turn activates a motor which does the actual focusing. There were several times as the batteries were getting low that focusing was enough to turn the camera off. When the battery power gets too low, the camera powers down. Unfortunately, it loses many of the settings, including the focus when that happens. I would hope that with manual focus, those settings would be held. Zooming also consumes power.
For fieldwork, I would get the optional rechargeable lithium polymer battery holder, which attaches to the bottom of the camera and looks like a motor drive. For studio work, the optional AC adaptor would be a reasonable investment. I did not have the opportunity to try either option, though both look easy and straightforward to use. Read all the instructions, though. The lithium polymer battery should be removed before using the AC adaptor, since the camera continues to draw power from the battery (just with the lithium polymer battery) when the adaptor is connected. Taken with the E-10 © Bernhard J Suess 
For many photographers it may not be a drawback, but the Camedia E-10 can shoot up to 4 frames-at a rate of three per second-before it needs to write the images. If you're doing action photography, this could be a troubling limit. For those souls who need more images quicker, Olympus does make the Camedia E-100 RS (Rapid Shot). The E-100 RS can capture up to ten shots at 15 frames per second. The resolution is considerably lower, though, at 1368 x 1024 pixels (approximately 1.4 megapixels). For my money, I'd stick with the Camedia E-10. It's certainly among the best in its class for features, price, and quality. For other camera manufacturers, this will be the one to beat.
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