E330 Review is Out

[Hacker]

that will be fun!

We should do it soon. Let's see, we can do a MEGA 50mm shootout with 6 of Oly lenses:

TEST 1
(a) 50mm
(b) 14-54mm
(c) 35-100mm
(d) 50-200mm
(e) 40-150mm
(f) 18-180mm

TEST 2
Repeat the same but with the E-330 vs E-500!

My humble suggestion.......

 

[shchow]

i can contribute the 50mm to this test. that's all i have!

 

[philshots]

We should do it soon. Let's see, we can do a MEGA 50mm shootout with 6 of Oly lenses:

TEST 1
(a) 50mm
(b) 14-54mm
(c) 35-100mm
(d) 50-200mm
(e) 40-150mm
(f) 18-180mm

TEST 2
Repeat the same but with the E-330 vs E-500!

My humble suggestion.......

At the end of the day, it is about whether or not you can accept what the camera produces for you. If yes, all these test means little though they will throw some light to the qaulities (e.g. lens, the camera CCD/ CMOS sensor capabilities) or the lack of it.

The result of the these tests will become very critical if you're looking for "perfection of colors" (dynamic range, etc) from this $2k package to give you "medium format" image qualities.

 

[Chief]

The review looks fine to me. Not too bad.

 

[Hacker]

At the end of the day, it is about whether or not you can accept what the camera produces for you. If yes, all these test means little though they will throw some light to the qaulities (e.g. lens, the camera CCD/ CMOS sensor capabilities) or the lack of it.

The result of the these tests will become very critical if you're looking for "perfection of colors" (dynamic range, etc) from this $2k package to give you "medium format" image qualities.

I'm looking at relative comparisons between the lenses and the E-500 and E-300.

 

[Moonstone]

The sample pictures look so good in this review site:http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/olympus/e330-review/gallery.shtml

 

[nightpiper]

We should do it soon. Let's see, we can do a MEGA 50mm shootout with 6 of Oly lenses:

TEST 1
(a) 50mm
(b) 14-54mm
(c) 35-100mm
(d) 50-200mm
(e) 40-150mm
(f) 18-180mm

TEST 2
Repeat the same but with the E-330 vs E-500!

My humble suggestion.......

COUNT ME IN!! :vhappy: i can provide my 2 helping hands for carrying tea/kopi & jolting down the observations.

with ur background & u r using Oly sys, its kind of like an endorsement for Oly E sys. :bsmilie:

thx Moonstone for the link. somehow i still find the samples' contrast a little low. maybe this is the trick used for "increasing DR", less prone to clipping? :think:

 

[Hacker]

Here are the lenses we have so far:

(1) 50mm
(2) 35-100mm

Anyone to contribute the rest for the shootout?

And we need to agree on some sort of things to shoot with.

 

[Hacker]

COUNT ME IN!! :vhappy: i can provide my 2 helping hands for carrying tea/kopi & jolting down the observations.

with ur background & u r using Oly sys, its kind of like an endorsement for Oly E sys. :bsmilie:

thx Moonstone for the link. somehow i still find the samples' contrast a little low. maybe this is the trick used for "increasing DR", less prone to clipping? :think:

Come come come...all welcome!

 

[tomcat]

Check out the results of the noise and dynamic range comparison tests between the E-500 and E-330 carried out by Anders Uschold in this post:

http://www.fourthirdsphoto.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=1919

For those who are impatient, here are the results he posted:

The cameras show the following mean standard deviation hat represents noise level over the the full brightness range, the lower the better, and input dynamic ranges in stops, the higher the better, at the different ISO settings 100 - 200 - 400 - 800 - 1600 ISO

Luminance channel:

Noise:
E-500: 2.5 - 3.1 - 4.2 - 4.9 - 5.4
E-330: 2.6 - 3.1 - 4.1 - 4.7 - 5.1

Here the E-330 is just slightly better at high ISO speed


Red color channel:

E-500: 3.8 - 4.8 - 6.7 - 9.1 - 13.5
E-330: 3.4 - 4.3 - 5.6 - 5.1 - 5.8

Here the E-330 is remarkably better especially at high ISO speed. That means chroma noise has improved significantly.


Dynamic range:
E-500: 8.3 - 7.9 - 7.4 - 6.9 - 6.2
E-330: 8.4 - 8.2 - 7.5 - 7.3 - 6.9

The E-330 shows better dynamic range, even in vivid mode. Tone reproduction and OECF are almost identical.


The MOS is better than the CMOS.

At ISO 1600, the 330 shows relevant to strong noise compensation signs. Here noise is not longer film like.

 

[plastic]

Here are the lenses we have so far:

(1) 50mm
(2) 35-100mm

Anyone to contribute the rest for the shootout?

And we need to agree on some sort of things to shoot with.

You take air freight? Just kidding...

 

[Moonstone]

COUNT ME IN!! :vhappy: i can provide my 2 helping hands for carrying tea/kopi & jolting down the observations.

with ur background & u r using Oly sys, its kind of like an endorsement for Oly E sys. :bsmilie:

thx Moonstone for the link. somehow i still find the samples' contrast a little low. maybe this is the trick used for "increasing DR", less prone to clipping? :think:

You're welcome, nightpiper. Anyway it's a lot of improvement to the samples I've viewed over at dpreview. In fact I almost fell off the chair when I saw the samples at dpreview, I was thinking how could that be the Olympus E330, it looks totally out.:bsmilie:

 

[Hacker]

You take air freight? Just kidding...

;p Maybe in June when you are back in SG.

 

[plastic]

;p Maybe in June when you are back in SG.

I would really love to meet up just for coffee and know you guys then. I will be back in May as well, but to attend my mother's birthday bash. She is quite hip, considering not much people would be holding a mini-concert to celebrate their birthdays. Anyone keen to shoot old people on stage? LOL. I will be performing with some of my session musician friends. Then I can hit two birds with one stone. Its happening on 13th May. Have to check with my mom which auditorium/hall she has booked. Quite a number of old timers attending the event and performing.

 

[Wai]

wai... that's exactly what i've done in another forum (thanks to nightpiper suggestion). trying to compare pictures of the same subject taken under the same env conditions. Pictures are taken with the E-500 (CCD sensor) and E-330 (LiveMOS). ...

hmm...want to add 350D and 50D to the list too? since they are all entry level DSLR with similar price range

 

[Wai]

We should do it soon. Let's see, we can do a MEGA 50mm shootout with 6 of Oly lenses:

TEST 1
(a) 50mm
(b) 14-54mm
(c) 35-100mm
(d) 50-200mm
(e) 40-150mm
(f) 18-180mm

TEST 2
Repeat the same but with the E-330 vs E-500!

My humble suggestion.......

what's the aim of the test? if the aim of the test is to compare the capability of different sensors in terms of details capture, dynamic range...etc, you should use the best (1) and only prime lens, so that the lens itself will not be the limiting factor.

and if you want to compare with other DSLR like 350D and D50, you should choose a lens such that the effective focal length is about the same.

that's the point of side-by-side comparison

 

[tomcat]

You're welcome, nightpiper. Anyway it's a lot of improvement to the samples I've viewed over at dpreview. In fact I almost fell off the chair when I saw the samples at dpreview, I was thinking how could that be the Olympus E330, it looks totally out.:bsmilie:

Actually, I thought that the sample photos taken by Phil Askey in his Sample Gallery were very good.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse330/page28.asp

Someone commented in dpreview that if he was shown Phil's sample photos taken with the D200 and the E-330 without knowing which camera they had came from and was asked which set of photos he preferred, he would have picked those from the E-330.

 

[Hacker]

what's the aim of the test? if the aim of the test is to compare the capability of different sensors in terms of details capture, dynamic range...etc, you should use the best (1) and only prime lens, so that the lens itself will not be the limiting factor.

and if you want to compare with other DSLR like 350D and D50, you should choose a lens such that the effective focal length is about the same.

that's the point of side-by-side comparison

The test can be conducted as what I have proposed, since all the variables would be the same for both cameras. Each camera can be compared with the 50, 35-100, etc lens for example. One shot with the 14-54 on one body, another shot on the other body. I really do not see any issues. Why limit the comparison with one lens?

 

[Hacker]

hmm...want to add 350D and 50D to the list too? since they are all entry level DSLR with similar price range

Not really, I personally find that the tests are not equal to begin with since the lens and the sensor are already different. Unless we are looking at the net result, there is almost no way to test whether lens A is better than lens B, or sensor A is better than sensor B given the simple test we want to carry out. However, for two cameras with the same mount, we can do so, since they are using the exact same lenses.

What is my objective? Just to see how the 2 cameras behave with a variety of lenses.

 

[NMSS_2]

Someone commented in dpreview that if he was shown Phil's sample photos taken with the D200 and the E-330 without knowing which camera they had came from and was asked which set of photos he preferred, he would have picked those from the E-330.

totally agree.:bsmilie: that was one of the reason that attracted me to oly.