Olympus E-20

Very good stuff and I love it much. Hihgly recommend!

The Olympus E20 should have never been released. The auto-focus is totally inconsistent and has ruined many photo opportunities for me. It is a monster in weight, something that really doesn't bother me if it would focus correctly all the time. I like many of the SLR features but a ruined photo shoot is a ruined photo shoot.. You would be better off with a cell phone camera. Also the rubber hand grips are melting into a goo.

I have purchased several Olympus c2500's, since the year 2000. They run circles around the e20 in reliability. The auto focus has never failed.

Quite good, the Olympus E-20 does the trick for me.The quality is decent although the focus is a little fiddly. Excellent for practising professional photography.Very easy to transfer pictures to your PC with, reliable camera.

Olympus really should never have released this camera with its auto-focus problems. The annoying thing is I have used the C330 and the recently issued C350 which both give superb auto-focus results at a small proportion of the Olympus E-20's cost! The E20 has been returned to Olympus twice and accompanied by samples on CD which they conveniemtly failed to return to me and the only comment each time was "No fault found"!

The E-20 is a newer version of the E-10 (also reviewed here). The main difference being that it now has 5 Megapixels to the E-10's 4.

Previous reviews of the E-10 are mostly applicable to the E-20. In other words, what's changed is additions and improvements. For example, the E-20 supports the IBM Microdrive. But mostly I'm interested in adding a few thoughts on where this digital camera is a winner and where others are better.

The E-20 is excellent for ultra-fast shutter speeds. So, wildelife and sports use might seem obvious. I've also found it excellent for interior shots at weddings (telephoto in low light during the service!). It is, however, very slow at writing its data to the storage media AND only allows 4 shots to be queued. So, if you're after more fast sequenced shots, with MORE THAN 4 shots in the sequence, this isn't the camera I'd choose.

For tripod mounted pictures (studio or outdoors), then the E-20 is fantastic. I'm now using mine instead of medium format cameras. In particular, its night shooting capabilities (enhanced by special software) are phenominal. But, that old focusing problem--inherited from the E-10--is still there, and autofocus sometimes doesn't like the dark. Still, you can check your results (to some degree) on the inbuilt display screen.

As a former professional photographer, I like the way the E-20 handles. Its erganomics are what I'd expect from Olympus--quite simply the best there is!! On the downside, there may be a few too many controls. I always liked the simplicity of the Olympus OM-1. For this reason, I tend to plan a shoot and not fiddle too much. With programmes like Photoshop (as your digital darkroom), you can safely leave the fiddling until later.

A few additional comments: if you use a microdrive, you'll be able to take lots more pictures than with a card, but, be aware that this is a miniature hard-drive. It is easily damaged by vibration or other shocks (especially when it's writing data), so better used on a tripod or studio situation. It also uses a lot of battery power (although, I do use mine with CR-V3 batteries, I'd recommend buying a portable power pack and DC-to-AC converter + AC Power Pack. Mine is a Car Jump-Starter + PC Power Converter).

Alternative camera: Sony's 5 megapixel camera. It does well what the E-20 doesn't and the E-20 does what it can't. So one of these should suit you. See the Sony DSC-F717.

After using a couple of digital cameras for a few months I determined that it was time to go to digital media entirely. After much research the Olympues E20 was the only choice that seemed to make sense for my uses. The only competition cost at least 3 times as much and would require the purchase of new lenses also. The camera is built of very high quality and is comforatable to use for people who have been used to SLR cameras. The large manual focus and zoom rings on the lense are a great help when composing shots.

The only annoying things about the camera is the time it takes to boot up after the power is turned on - it takes about 7 or 8 seconds. This little detail has caused me to miss some shots. Another thing that should also be noted is the noise that can be seen when the ISO is set above 160. This is a common problem with most if not all digital cameras though.

Both of these problems are minor because the camera otherwise is an absolute pleasure to use in all other respects. It is built tough and because of it's very low power consumption can be run on standard AA alkaline batteries in a pinch.

The Olympus E-20 digital is a very good digital camera for easy use ONLY.