Olympus Evolt E620 12.3MP Live MOS Digital SLR Camera with Image Stabilization and 2.7 inch Swivel LCD w/ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED Zuiko Lenses
Olympus Evolt E620 12.3MP Live MOS Digital SLR Camera with Image Stabilization and 2.7 inch Swivel LCD w/ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED Zuiko Lenses
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 List Price: $799.99 Sale Price: Too low to display Availability: unspecified 
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Product Description
E-620 12.3 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera features six creative in-camera art filters, Multiple Exposure shooting and a swivel Live View 2.7" HyperCrystal III LCD offer artistic freedom and endless creative possibilities.
Details
- 12.3-megapixel Live MOS sensor for photo-quality, poster-size prints
- Lightweight ergonomic design; kit includes 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko lens and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 ED Zuiko lens
- TruePic III for superior image quality in all lighting situations; Supersonic Wave Drive (in-body sensor shift)
- 2.7-inch HyperCrystal III Swivel LCD; Smooth Live View allows you to change the frame rate of the Live View display
- Stores images to Compact Flash (Type I and II), Microdrive, xD Picture card (not included)
Rating
I bought this camera a few weeks ago as an upgrade of another great DSLR of my own (OLY E500) and also to take advantage of the existing lenses, filters and flashlight formerly acquired for this later. Despite to have taken during several years very good pics with the E500, I would like to stress that the enhancements included in the E620 represent a great added value when comparing it with the older DSLR version: Live view, Image Stabilization, 7 AF points, CMOS sensor, Swivel LCD, art filters and, of course, greater resolution and sensitivity. The several tests that I have made in different conditions gave me so far very pleasant results and so I am delighted with my new purchase.
Rating
I love this camera. I have been wanting a dslr for a long time and have always used Olymuus cameras. I am very unexperienced in the slr world, but love taking pictures and the photo bug had hit me hard. I had finally decided to purchase a dslr and then found that olympus had this model comming out. I read reviews and decided this one was worth waiting for the release of. I am not dissapointed. I am learning how to use the advanced controls one at a time, but what is really great is that I no longer miss shots because of slow auto focus. Having a camera that takes the picture when you actually push the button is great. I have printed several of the pics I have shot and am very happy with the quality. As I said I am new to dslr so I cannot comment on how that works, but this is definately a great camera at a great price for someone wanting an entry level dslr. I have read alot of reviews that said that pros were carring this camera as a backup, and love it to.
Rating
I have had the E-620 for about a week and i moved from a E-510. E-510 was my first DSLR and using that over the years i have been very satisfied and happy with the 510 especially due to the in body image stabilization and lens line-up. Liveview was also a plus over competitors but i never really used it unless it was really dark or i needed to manual focus.
Some things on the E-510 that were aging and were kind of the few weak points of the entry level E series was the 3 point autofocus system, small viewfinder and low light focusing. The lcd was so so too but for an SLR i don’t see why a high pixel LCD should be important.. sure its good to have one but its not important.
Anyhow the E-620 really improves all these problems and really becomes a strong no compromise camera; worthy of buying just because its excellent.. not because its great value as was the case for me for the E-510.
1) The viewfinder is much larger; suitable for manual focusing.
2) now has 7 points – 5 cross (which is better then any entry slr .. d5000, t1i etc included). — now that Ive had sometime to try out the imager AF; ill say that although its not the fastest AF system (talking about the hybrid mode as i don’t have compatible lenses for standalone imager mode) — it works very reliably in low light conditions; better then the phase detect sensor on its own. Using liveview to compose night shots many times i found my e510 hunting and eventually taking out of focus shots forcing complete manual focus– hybrid mode definitely lets you use AF in seriously dark conditions.
3) nice flipping LCD which again trumps the other 2 boys in the group in terms of utility.
4) Much better tone curves/gradation/dynamic range.. people argue .. i don’t know.. i just know that highlight and shadow information is retained very well. Of course jpgs turn out nice due to the gradation but there is dynamic range improvement visible in raw too.
Some things that have continued to be Olympus selling points
5) in body image stabilization
6) Excellent body quality… compare it to canon entry levels and see what i mean
7) Very strong, potentially the best lens line-up out there. kit lenses being outstanding value for money — you can start taking good photographs right away.. unlike kit lenses from others.
Some other feature like the Art filters and multiple exposure (over laying multiple photos) are just a side for most people. Id say all of them are aesthetically pleasing filters and fun to try– if you use them, you still have your raw file to do off camera processing. But id say that these features to me are like the video recording by canon and nikon — just a pleasant aside but not really what dslr photography has been about (at least in the past).
The issue of high ISO with oly has always been there, some thoughts:
I like the extra ISO steps and use the ISO 160 as standard ( people say 200 gives best DR in comparison to 100 — but i think 160 is slightly better then 200)
In contrast to canons move up to 15MP for the 50D and t1i– Olys move from 10 to 12.3MP you will find actually better high iso performance then the E-510 and 520. ISO 1250 is about comparable to 1600 of others. id say upto ~ 1250 is useable. Notice that 15MP and over the APS-C pixel density actually goes above the 10MP 4/3rd sensor. Essentially low light performance in APS-C cameras has been going down (or staying stable at best) across the board. So if you want to take pictures of football games in pitch dark at 6400 ISO 4/3rds or APS-C is not what you are looking for. Generally the solution to low light is not pumping up the ISO the first course of action is of course flash- with regards to that E-620 allows a lot of functionality with the Fl-36R/50R units including built in wireless flash support (no need for carrying a transmitter)
Over all for an mid entry SLR you will be very happy with the E-620. Another factor is ergonomics and i like holding an Olympus but that you will have to try and compare yourself– happy shooting!
-updated to include thoughts on Imager AF and wireless flash support
Rating
I finally upgraded from the Olympus E-300, using the E-300 for almost 4 years for fun and professional work; I finally decided to upgrade. This may sound like a review for the E-300, but because of the E-300 being such a good camera I wanted to stay with the Olympus brand. Yes, I could have gone to Canon.. Nikon.. or whatever others but it was a valid CHOICE to stick with the Olympus. I’ve taken probably 100k+ pictures with the E300, the battery still lasts forever, the camera still works great. the E300 is now my backup camera.
I’ve had the E620 for about a month now and have nothing but praise about it as well. Its smaller than the e300, it shoots 4.5 fps and with an 233x card you can shoot about 15 CONTINUOUS shots (high jpg) before a small lag starts. I think in raw its about 5-6 pictures.
The e620 is really light weight, live view is pretty neat (i still use it sparingly) the fact that you can twist and turn the LCD is very nice and has already been helpful in a few instances. The in body image stabilizer also is a cool feature. I’ve used it, but, the experience with it still limited (been shooting mainly outside, w/ a fast shutter)
The only “cons” so far with it is the Raw files, higher ISO (1000+) and long exposures.
- With Raw files… I dont think Photoshop CS3 supports the camera and with CS4 you have to download the Beta camera Raw files. (for the time being until it is a full release) the olympus master works ok at best for the raw. once you do get the raw working in CS4 it unlocks a lot of options. Once you have this fix raw is great.
- higher ISO… its ok, gets grainy though. you can start to see noise at about 1000 then it gets gradually worse; as expected.
- long exposures at night. i started to get weird noise in the image. i’ll be messing with this some more in time to see if this is normal or if there is really a problem.
all in all, I’m happy with my purchase. i give the product a 4.8 out of 5.
Rating
Hello, I am a seasoned fine art photographer. Outdoors, I photograph landscapes and classic architecture, mostly European. In my studio, I do my own flower studies and reproduce original artwork for artists and crafters. My main system is a Pentax K20D with DA* and DA lenses. I use an Olympus E series as a backup system or when I want to travel light.
I have recently replaced my E-510, that had served me well for one year, with an E-620 two-lens kit. As soon as I got it, I put the camera through a set of field tests consistent with my kind of photography. My conclusion is that with the E-620, Olympus have fully met their 1999 promise to use the 4/3″ format to develop small and light cameras and lenses without compromises of quality and price. I was concerned about the diminutive size of the body but I found it to fit my average-sized male hands remarkably well. The feeling is comfortingly solid and the commands are logically placed. I never had a problem with the Olympus control system and this camera is no exception.
The new 12.3Mp sensor is quite good. Depending on light conditions, noise is very low up to ISO800-1600. Dynamic range is definitively improved. Pictures taken in early July of my house and garden at noon in full sun recorded the entire tonal range with no shadow/highlights clipping. Minuscule detail is also captured remarkably well. Co-responsible for this are the two kit lenses, rightly famous for their high quality/price ratio with good corner-to-corner sharpness and low optical distortion and chromatic aberration. Very important to me, the viewfinder is larger with coverage of 95% and magnification of 96%, and allows me to focus manually.
This is my first (transmissive) LCD monitor truly usable in full sun. It is completely articulated, hinged on the side of the camera so that it does not interfere with the head of the tripod (like the Nikon 5000). Even with “only” 230,000 pixels, I still find it to be remarkably bright and sharp. It helps a lot with copy stand work and macro in the field. This is enhanced by the quality of the camera’s Live View. The E-620 can use contrast-based autofocus eliminating the need for the sequence mirror down/focus/mirror up. Live View shows a lot of information, live histogram included, and allows for many key regulations. You can choose any area of the picture and enlarge it x5, x7 or x10 for fine focusing. The enlarged view is quite clear and sharp. The new 7-point phase detection autofocus has evolved and feels faster (I use spot autofocus anyway to ensure that I always know where the camera is focusing). Image stabilization on the sensor allows for smaller, less delicate and less expensive lenses. Lab tests indicate that it provides a 2 to 2.5 f/stops gain. The dust suppression system is still the best (some experts say the only one truly effective on the market). The camera offers an unparalleled wealth of manual and automatic regulations through its dedicated buttons and the LCD monitor.
Outside, I use the camera on aperture priority at f/8-11 (to minimize lens diffraction) at a setting as close to ISO200 as possible (the camera’s sweet spot for noise and dynamic range). No matter how good the exposure meter is, most of my pictures have always needed compensation. I take as many test pictures as necessary (with the Fn button set to “test picture”) to get the proper exposure. The half-pressed shutter button is set to lock focus only. I focus where I want (mostly with an eye on hyperfocus), recompose and take the picture. In studio, I use the Fn button to get a custom white balance and set the camera to Live View and manual focus. I enlarge the subject for fine focusing, take some test pictures to perfect the exposure, and shoot with an extension cable and the “anti-shock” function set to 3 seconds (with anti-shock on, when you press the shutter button the camera lifts the mirror and waits the number of seconds set by you – up to 30 – before shooting, letting the mirror vibrations subside). Since the camera is on a tripod, I do turn image stabilization off. I shoot Raw+jpeg, use jpeg for family emails and reserve Raw for all my professional work. Developing in Camera Raw 5.4 at 16bit/channel in the ProPhoto color space, processing in Photoshop CS4, upsizing in Genuine Fractals 5, and printing with Epson UltraChrome inks and fine art papers and canvas, I obtain impeccable prints up to at least 24×30″.
I believe that the best camera is the one that gets you to carry it around and have fun photographing. Today, it is the Olympus E-620 that does it for me. If Olympus is listening, I would respectfully wish for an AC adapter.
Rating
I’ve had an E-620 for about a month, and with each photo I’m finding more to like about it.
Any camera represents a series of compromises as the manufacturer trades weight vs. features vs. cost vs. ergonomics vs. image quality. Any purchase decision should be based on how those particular trade-offs jibe with the intended use. None of the name-brand cameras in this price range that I’ve looked at are bad. But, for me and for the type of photography I do now, the E-620 is the closest fit.
Number one is the available lenses. Read the reviews of the kit zooms such as the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS with its chromatic aberration and the Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S VR DX with its barrel distortion. Unlike the Olympus Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ED, both have front elements that rotate when you focus, making the use of a polarizer or a petal-type hood difficult. Unlike the Olympus, both have manual focus rings that can’t be used without shifting the lens out of autofocus. Yes, Canon and Nikon make other lenses that are sharper, faster, heavier and more expensive — so does Olympus. But if you want to use the kit lens, the Olympus one gets better reviews.
Olympus also makes a sharp and handy Zuiko Digital 35mm f/3.5 Macro, which has been spending more time on my E-620 than either of the kit lenses. For me, it’s a great walking-around lens, good for both environmental portraits and product shots. On the other hand, if I needed a 600mm f/4 or a 14mm f/2.8, I’d have gotten a Canon or a Nikon.
The E-620 has in-body image stabilization, which means you buy it once and haul it around once, instead of adding weight and cost to every lens. Again, one could argue that at the extreme high end in-lens image stabilization is better, but I don’t live at the extreme high end.
I had thought that the E-620’s live view would be a gimmick, but it’s quite useful zoomed in 10 times for manual focus on a copy stand- or tripod-mounted camera for macro work. You can easily assign the E-620’s Fn button to auto white balance when you need it, and just as easily re-assign it to toggle face detect or autofocus on and off when that’s what you prefer.
In the kit with the 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and the 40-150mm f/4-5.6, the E-620 is currently priced comparably to the Nikon D60 and its kit 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens plus a Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6 VR lens and to the Canon Rebel XS and its kit 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens plus a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS lens.
The E-620 lacks the D60’s manual focus indicator and separate autofocus assist light, while the Nikon lacks the Olympus’ dedicated ISO and white balance select buttons and has only three autofocus points. Like the Olympus, the Canon has seven autofocus points, but it has a very awkwardly placed exposure compensation button. All three cameras have a viewfinder with 95 percent frame coverage, but the E-620 has a magnification of 0.96x, compared to 0.8x for the D60 and 0.81x for the Rebel XS.
The E-620; the 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6, the 40-150mm f/4-5.6, the 35mm f/3.5 Macro; and an FL-36R flash in a Domke F-3X bag weigh 6 pounds, less than the equivalent Nikon and Canon kits and far less than what I schlepped around when I was shooting film. The best camera is the one you have with you.
Rating
Perhaps the best mid-range DSLR money can buy (currently). A truly sweet deal and a superb camera. A rare 5 star rating from me and well deserved.
A lot of people overlook this camera, it truly is one of the best mid-range DSLR’s out there. Having owned many Olympus camera’s (since the E-10) like the E-500, E-300, E-330, and so on, I can attest to their quality and results. I still consider other brands when buying, but Olympus is where I look first.
The “kit” lenses supplied with Oly’s cameras are really very good and all the others offered are top notch as well.
A real big plus, rarely mentioned, is that there are a ton of exquisite Olympus lenses out there from the film days that you can mount (with an adapter) and use. This opens up a new world of shooting and is a ton of fun, besides.
All in all, this has to be one of the best values around currently.
Rating
I just got this camera yesterday and am loving it. I am upgrading from an E510. I was very interested in the better live view and the flippy twisty screen of the 620 and it does not disappoint. I will use the optical viewfinder most of the time but the imager AF live view and the ability to angle the screen is going to eliminate me laying on the ground and such quite a bit.
The size of he camera is nice. A bit smaller than the 510 but still easy enough for me to hold. The biggest lens I have is the 70-300mm and it feels fine with the camera. I am not sure how the bigger Oly lens would feel…I can’t imagine the 50-200mm of one of the SHG lenses on this camera but I won;t ever own any of those anyway.
The IQ of the 620 is very nice. I think Oly jpgs are the best. Great color, contrast, exposure, etc. I think 1600ISO is perfectly usable and easily cleaned up if you have a severe case of noisephobia at 100% pixels.
All in all, the 620 is going to be a great camera for me. Feature packed, small, not too expensive and a joy to use.
Rating
First read this: I am not one of the professional photographers who’ve reviewed this camera here at Amazon. Rather, I’m an amateur travel photo enthusiast who enjoys recording my trips. With that said, during a recent trip to Europe, I shot excellent day, night, dusk, and indoor flash-less shots with this camera–all of which turned out marvelous. I really need some photography education, but even without any, I figured out how to shoot some proud photos with this easy-to-use camera.
The camera design is excellent, the construction is sturdy, and the 2 lenses fill all my needs. Any criticisms I might include would be a slightly unresponsive Menu button (sometimes after being depressed, the screen only lights for a moment, requiring a 2nd push. A 2 GB memory card held about 600 photos taken at full file size (no complaints, I’d never exceed that on a trip). Battery life was not a problem. After about 300 shots, it required re-charging, but only because I took so many trial photos with the flash. The art filters are fun, too. Don’t even bother with the software, that always sucks, and you don’t need it anyways to upload the photos to your computer. I have no regrets with buying this camera. Should it go south on me, I’ll revise this review. Good luck!
Rating
The E620 is my first DSLR and I have no regrets in buying it. Before this camera, I primarily used point-n-shoot cameras which I feel are great for casual events do to the portability and ease of just taking it out of my pockets and shooting away. However I wanted an upgrade to use for more special gatherings such as graduations, weddings, family functions, or vacations. I wouldn’t say that the pictures I was taking with my point-n-shoot were bad, but they were definitely a step below photos taken from my friends DSLRs. The most imporant features for me were 1) size, 2) price, 3) live-view screen, and 4) quality of pictures with the included lenses. With those factors in mind, I narrowed my choice down to the Nikon D5000, Canon T1i, and Olympus E620
1) Getting used to small pocket point-n-shoot camers, I wanted a DSLR that was also small and light weight. I knew that there was no way I’d be able to fit the DSLR into my jacket pocket or anything like that, but I at least wanted something that was going to be easy to carry around and easy to take in and out of the bag. I’ve seen people who carried what looked like 10-15 pound bags of camera gear and this is what I wanted to avoid. The E620 is probably one of the most compact DSLRs out there. I went to the local store and compared the E620 with the Nikon D5000 and Canon T1i. It wasn’t clearly the smallest camera since the Canon seemed pretty compact too, but when holding the camera, the build quality of the Olympus felt like it was a better assembled camera. The buttons, dials, and switches all felt like they were carefully put together and would last many years of use.
2) The price of the E620 was about a $100 less then the Nikon and Canon. This was a pretty big factor for me since I knew I also had to spend money on a bag, storage device, lens/camera cleaners, simple lens filter, possibly an extra battery. My budget for the entire package was about $800. I didn’t want to get low quality accessaries like a $5 camera bag or the generic storage device, since I knew that my bag was going to help protect the camera from any accidental drops and the difference between a failed flash card and a one that didn’t fail is almost priceless. The accessaries I wanted to get was about $100 street value, which was perfect since that was about the same amount of money saved from buying an Olympus compared to the Nikon or Canon.
3) Being used to point-n-shoot cameras, I really wanted a DSLR with a good live view screen. Before doing more research into the DSLRs, I used to think that live-view was standard on all DSLRS. They all had lcd screens which I thought was for the users to see what s/he was taking a photo of. However this is not the case and live-view is a relatively new feature on DSLRs. Apparently most DSLR users use the view-finder which I find to be slightly annoying. The E620 easily and acurrately focused on the subjects when using live view and this made it a very easy transition to use the E620. Now I just need to play around more with the manual controls and have my photos coming out the way I want them too. As an added bonus, the E620 offers a swivel screen. This is great when you need to raise the camera above your head to take a picture since you can easily swivel the screen so you can see what you are taking a picture of. Its also very useful when you need to take a picture from the ground up.
4) Lenses are the most important part of a DSLR camera. Even after a few years when a camera depreciates, a good lens can hold its value fairly well. Many times buying an extra lens will cost more then the camera itself! Since price was a concern for me I wanted a camera that came with decent lenses. I didn’t want to spend an extra $500 on another lens. After reading many reviews, it was determined that the Olympus came with very qualified kit lenses that were quick to focus and took sharp looking photos. I understand that a more expensive lens should produce better results, but many times I always felt that my point-n-shoot cameras took really good photographs already, so there’s a good chance that I’ll might not even be able to tell the difference between the a good picture and a great picture. And again, I’m just a casual camera user and wouldn’t even consider myself a hobbiest or an amateur photographer. So I think kit lenses will be enough for my needs.
I’ve owned my camera for about 6 months now and I must say that I’m still very pleased with it and that I’m slowly learing more and more about photography and how to take better pictures. This camera fit perfectly for my needs and happens to also take very good photos. For those of you trying to decide between the Nikon, Canon, or Olympus, you really can’t go wrong with any of them, but just know what your needs are and it’ll be a much simpler choice.
Rating
Olympus has knocked one out of the park! I have had my e620 for just a few days and I must say I am very impressed with it’s capabilities and features. The competition can not even come close in this price range. You really would have to spend hundreds more to get the same caliber of camera from the leading competition. Although no camera is perfect, this one comes close for my needs. There are already lots of reviews out there talking about the technical specifications and capabilities of the e620 so I won’t go into that. I’ll just tell you what I like:
I bought this camera as replacement to my e520. I loved my e520 but it was lacking in a couple of areas, mainly, the e520 didn’t perform well at high ISO settings. But that is all fixed in the e620. I also wanted the improved continuous shooting speed from 3.5 fps to 4 fps. There are many other improvements over the older e520 so I sold my e520 and ordered the e620 from Amazon / Adorama.
The e620 produces super high quality photos. In auto mode this camera takes amazing photos. I have members of my family using the two leading brands of DSLRs. If we all take photos of the same thing, mine always turn out better with more vivid colors, sharper image, more accurate white balance and better bokeh effect,. The ironic thing is they paid about the same amount as I did for their more popular name brand camera kits. They thought they were getting better cameras because of the name, but the truth is, currently, no one can match the e620 at the same price. The features and capabilities of this camera at this price puts the e620 in a class all its own. The images produced by the e620 are really great. You can shoot in RAW if you want, but the JPEGs produced by this camera are amazing. I used to shoot in RAW but now I almost always use the JPEGs straight from the camera.
The e620 has tons of flexibility and custom settings. It truly gives you all the control you would ever want. There are many extra features that I will probably never even use but I like knowing they are there in case I ever need them. For those who don’t need all of the extra control, this camera’s full auto mode takes very suburb photos on its own. But if you’re like me and like to play in the manual settings, this camera is a dream. The e620 pretty much gives you the same control as the professional cameras. The menu system is laid out in a very logical way and is easy to get accustom to. The other brands don’t give you near this many manual settings in this price range. Some amateurs complain that they are overwhelmed by the many buttons and controls on the Olympus cameras. But the button layout and the control panel make it a snap to quickly adjust your settings on the fly so you can get the perfect photo. For me, I would rather have the flexibility and options to control the camera than be locked down to a limited set of functions.
Image stabilization is built into the camera body. Don’t believe anyone who tells you lens stabilization works better than in-camera stabilization. For the type of photos I take, lots of action and sports, and some with a 300 mm lens without a tripod, the in-camera stabilization works very well. And the best part, you can save a lot of money when buying lenses because you don’t have to buy the image stabilization with each lens. This is a must have feature.
Fast continuous shooting at 4 frames per second. Faster than the other brands at this price. This is very nice for sports and action shots. I use this feature a lot to take photos of my children’s sport events.
Fast auto focus. You can take photos really fast with this camera because it focus locks so fast. And it has lots of focus points making focusing even more accurate and fast.
The buttons are back lit. This is great when you are trying to shoot in the dark and need to make adjustments. Once you are used to the camera, you will pretty much have all of the button locations memorized, but it is still nice to have a visual confirmation of the button locations when shooting in the dark.
Excellent high ISO performance. This is a huge improvement over the e520 which I previously owned. This make taking pictures in low light without a flash possible. And the noise level is quite acceptable and on par with the competition. I have already taken 3200 ISO photos that are usable. And the 1600 ISO photos I have taken are not bad at all. I am very excited I will be able to use these high ISO settings. I couldn’t really go over ISO 800 with the e520.
Art filters are fun to use and allow you more creativity with your photos. I like these art filters. You can do the same thing in Photoshop, but it is fun to be able to use the effects in the field and see the results on the spot. I think I will use these quite a bit.
The ingenious dust reduction system was invented by Olympus and works flawlessly. You don’t ever need to worry about needing to clean your camera’s internal sensor.
The fold out screen makes macro shots near the ground so much easier. This is a huge improvement. Screen is very bright and crystal clear. Not sure how much I will use the fold out screen, but it is a cool feature.
This small camera body is nice and comfortable to use. The camera feels well built and does not have the cheap plastic feel of the other brands at this price. And it is unbelievable how feature packed this small body is. I can easily fit this camera with the pancake lens in the front pocket of my cargo pants. Even thought the camera body is small, it still feel adequate and balanced with my 14-54 mm lens attached.
This camera has really good battery performance. You can take several hundred photos without needing a charge. Charge time is 3.5 hours. I bought a spare battery for $10 from eBay and it works as good as the Olympus battery but I’m not sure I will every really need to use it but it will be nice to have.
Live view works really good and is nifty for some situations like macros. I’m not a big fan of live view on the DSLRs, but it is a feature that is nice to have when you need it.
The Olympus lens lineup is top notch and the kit lens is very good, and better than what you get with the other brands’ kits.
In summary, this is a top notch, highly capable camera, packed with features. You can not go wrong with the e620. Check out [...] for an in depth technical review of the e620.
Rating
I’ve had the E-620 for a few weeks now and am quite pleased. Other options I considered were the Nikon D5000, Canon T1i & XSi, Panasonic G1, Sony A300 & A350, and Pentax K200D & K20D. Some comments with comparison notes:
1) SIZE & WEIGHT — There’s no point in having a camera that is so bulky that it doesn’t get much use. Only the Panasonic G1 is smaller than the E-620 but not by much. There is a more dramatic difference in the size of the lenses, with Olympus being much smaller than all but Panasonic. Makes for a very compact outfit. For anyone used to the size of film SLRs, the E-620 is very similar. My wife also found it the most comfortable for her to hold.
2) BUILD QUALITY & HANDLING — Very impressed with Olympus here. Solid, dense and with lots of sensibly placed buttons for direct access to settings. The other cameras had a less solid, plasticy feel, and their larger grips still weren’t large enough for a comfortable pistol grip with my average size hands. The Sonys, in particular, had awkward button placement. The E-620 has a different style of grip where you hold the camera in the same way as old film SLRs, and is more appropriate to such a small camera. I carry the camera comfortably in my *left* hand, grasping the body and lens barrel with my fingers on the zoom ring; this frees my right hand from having to support the camera while working controls, and leaves my good hand open (I’m a righty).
3) LENSES — The kit zooms from Olympus are reputed to be of higher quality than the others, as well as being more compact. So far I have been very impressed. I didn’t want to buy a camera only to feel the kit lenses needed replacing; I’d rather spend on lenses that offer new capabilities, like fast primes or dedicated macro lenses. For anyone interesting in using legacy manual focus lenses, inexpensive adapters are available to attach virtually any MF SLR lens to Olympus bodies; used lenses can be quite inexpensive on eBay. Panasonic is limited by a very small range of lenses. For a two lens kit, the E-620 was the cheapest option.
4) IMAGE QUALITY — I wanted to spend my time taking pictures, not fiddling with them in post-processing; Olympus has the best out-of-camera JPGs of the bunch (Canon and Pentax, in particular, fall short here). Although the smaller Olympus sensors are reputed to be a bit noisier, what noise there is is primarily luminance noise, giving images a film-like grain, rather than the colored blotches of chroma noise. I’ve found noise very well controlled through ISO1000, even with noise reduction set to LOW. For printing up through 8×10 and monitor display, I don’t think noise is a concern up through ISO1600 (certainly with noise reduction set to standard). One caveat: be sure to keep gradation set at NORMAL (the default), not AUTO, unless you really need it; using AUTO gradation will noticeably increase noise.
5) IN BODY STABILIZATION — I prefer in body stabilization to lens-based stabilization for two reasons: in body works with all lenses, and lenses can be more compact. You only carry one body but you are likely to carry multiple lenses, so it pays to keep them small.
6) LIVE VIEW & LCD — Olympus has the best live view implementation (maybe tied with Sony) with quite quick autofocus. This is very important if you want anyone, e.g. my wife or random bystanders, who’s used to compact cameras to use your SLR for snapshots or the like. The tilt & swivel LCD is very handy and seemed more natural than Nikon or Sony’s implementations.
Overall, I found the E-620 to be the best value for a two lens kit.
Here are a few notes on the other cameras I considered:
Nikon D5000 — Good build & handling, but a bit bulky. Live view isn’t great. Much more expensive for a two lens kit than the Olympus.
Canon T1i — Not impressed by the build quality, felt plasticy. Not comfortable for me to hold. Out of camera JPGs not so good. Inferior kit lenses. Much more expensive for a two lens kit than the Olympus.
Canon XSi — Not impressed by the build quality, felt plasticy. Not comfortable for me to hold. Out of camera JPGs not so good. Bulkier than the Olympus. Inferior kit lenses.
Panasonic G1 — Limited lens selection; will take legacy MF lenses but doesn’t offer image stabilization with them since it isn’t in the body. Plasticy. Not much smaller than the Olympus. More expensive than Olympus for a two lens kit.
Sony A300 & A350 — Hated the button placement–ruled them out on that alone. Live view is very good though.
Pentax K200D & K20D — Poor out of camera JPGs. Great handling and build quality. Short on features. Kit lenses aren’t great. No live view / live view useless.
Rating
I bought the E620 as an upgrade from an E300 I’ve had for several years. I was very happy with the picture quality of the E300 but it doesn’t support Live View nor in-camera image stabilazation. I’ve had the E620 for about a month now and I’ve been very happy with it. The image stabilization has really helped on hand-held shots with my 70-300mm zoom. The LCD is very large, bright and sharp and I really like the swivel capability. I also like that the LCD can be folded to face inward to the body for protection/storage. The body is very light and easy to handle and seems very solid despite being made of plastic. My E300 had a metal body and was as sturdy as a tank, but was also *much* heavier.
I also like that Olympus uses the Four-Thirds image sensor format. A lens designed for this format has a 2x focal length multiplier of the equivalent lens designed for the 35mm film format. For example, my 70-300mm zoom has the equivalent field of view of a 140-600mm lens designed for 35mm film. This 2x factor is also a significant increase over that of the APS-C image sensor format used by Canon and Nikon which have multipliers of 1.5x and 1.6x respectively compared to 35mm. This allows for significantly smaller and lighter lenses for the same focal range. Combine this with the excellent Olympus Zuiko kit lenses that you can buy with the E620 (as well as the rest of the Zuiko lens offerings) and you have smaller/lighter lenses with a reputation for excellent image quality for less money. Hard to beat!
Rating
I won’t go deeply into the features and benefits, if you’re reading this – then you’ve already researched those. I would rather tell you about how much fun this camera is to use. I’ve been a fan of super zooms for a long time and while they have their obvious drawbacks – they really are very handy. I was a big fan of the Canon S5 IS and when I moved up to an DSLR – I looked at Canon, but ultimately decided on an E-510. I liked it – solid camera, but I missed the swivel screen. It was really useful when shooting at odd angles (such as in a crowd). So along comes the E-620 and I jumped at it. I then added the battery grip, an Olympus grip strap and a Zuiko 18-180 lens. Suddenly I had the perfect camera (for me, of course)- a DSLR Super Zoom. It fits my hand perfectly, has 10x capability, is fast, light, perfect for a wide variety of shooting situations, and it has the versital swivel screen. It’s a HOT set up. Put it in a Tamarac 5683 and you have a great travel photography combo. I have this camera with me nearly all the time and the results have been fantastic.
A word about the art filters – LOVE THEM! I recommend you pair this camera up with a wrist strap and the Zuiko 25mm pancake lens. Then use the “grainy B&W film” art filter for astounding retro results. (This lens works well with the “Pop Art” filter as well). This set up has nearly the same size and weight as a point and shoot (like the Canon G series for example) with the image quality of a DSLR. Again, very fast and light and it can fit in a small bag or big coat pocket. Think – a cross between the E 410 and the E 30. It’s perfect!
This is Olympus’ best work to date. I highly recommend this camera. It’s a true artist’s camera and an absolute blast to use. If you’re already an Olympus fan, this is a “no brainer”. If you own another brand and are not too heavily invested in glass – this is a great camera to start with. The photographs you will take with this camera will WOW people.
Rating
I bought an Olympus E-620 from Adorama a few weeks ago and took it to Yellowstone to compare performance with my other Olympus digital cameras–an E-330 and an E-510. Took along my two good Olympus lenses–a 14-54mm and an 11/22mm.
I’ll leave a fuller discussion of the camera to others and just say my photo results from a day of shooting was a set of images easily acquired that were of superb quality–very sharp, very well exposed and yielding a tonal/dynamic range that was much greater than I’ve come to expect from Olympus digital cameras. Very easy to take photos without blowing highlights that also showed more detail in darker toned areas of an image. Olympus has greatly improved dynamic range with the E-620 over earlier E-series cameras.
One notable difference with the E-620 was the need to increase the exposure settings. My older Olympus E-330 and E-510 required setting exposure with -1/3 EV (minus 1/3), to insure most highlights weren’t overexposed. With the E-620, the EV needs to be set to +1/3 or more–otherwise images initially look too underexposed. The JPG engine in the camera seems to do very well–producing warm, saturated images. I developed RAW files with Iridient Raw Developer 1.8.3. The end files saved in Photoshop or TIFF are larger than those from earlier Olympus cameras (69mb or so, vs. 42mb from the E-330 and 57mb from the E-510).
I have had some odd, variable auto-focus behavior (back-focusing, sometimes), but this only requires I pay attention to what the camera is doing while taking pictures–and only seems to happen at the wide end of my lenses. Battery life was better than I expected–shot an 8GB CF card and most of another 4GB CF card with the battery still showing to be full. I’ll post a few images to demonstrate the nice results. The E-620 is highly recommended.
Rating
I bought this camera mainly because of the favorable reviews in magazines/ online forums. The four thirds format promises a smaller/lighter camera body. I really like the idea of in-body anti-shake so I can use lighter/less expensive lens as I grow as a amateur photographer. The camera offers a lot of features, such as art filter mode. For me, I don’t care and seldom use the filter mode, because you can be much more creative inside lightroom and photoshop. It’s best to get a clear photo to begin with. Overall, I love this camera. Great build quality. Plus, you can swap CF card with the camera mounted to a tripod since the compartment for the CF card is on the side rather the bottom as most other cameras.
Rating
I won’t try to write an exhaustive technical review of the outstanding Olympus E-620 DSLR, as this camera has been thoroughly studied and discussed elsewhere by professional photography web sites. However, as I already own and love Olympus’ top-end E-3 DSLR and the 12-60 SWD and 50-200 SWD pro level lens, I can reasonably compare the E-620 and kit lens with the E-3, and I rank the E-620 as virtually comparable regarding image quality, ease of use, quality craftsmanship, features and so forth. In short, the E-620 is easily capable of recording outstanding RAW and JPEG images. The art filters are also fun to use and experiment with, according to scenes that lend themselves more to the pop art setting, or the grainy black & white setting, and so forth. My only minor issue with the E-620 is having some difficulty to focus quickly in very low light settings. I am not sure if that has to do with the camera of the kit lens. However, I am very pleasantly surprised to find the inexpensive 14-42 kit lens to be outstanding in all other respects, with super color, contrast and sharpness, with minimal barrel distortion. For the money, I cannot recommend a better DSLR.