Olympus e620 Reviews Roundup - Update 06 Jul 2009

Now that I’ve ordered my e620 there’s not much to do but wait until it ships. Naturally, it wasn’t in stock anywhere in the body-only configuration, but I’m told that should be remedied sometime next week.

25 June update — Got it! The new e620 arrived this afternoon. I’ll post some first impressions in the next day or two. Hope to have a full review write-up within the next week or so.

In the meantime, I’ve been poring over the various e620 reviews that have appeared online. Thought you might find it convenient if they were all listed in one place, so here’s the current roundup (most recent from DCResource posted 25 June: see it under the “Full Reviews” heading below)…

e620 Previews and Mini-Reviews — updated 02 July

• 02 July 2009 — Wired today posted a short blurb about the e620 which they call a review… but isn’t. It’s only 12 short paragraphs and not much substance but does include a brief, two-minute video (if you can put up with the commercials that run before it begins). May not be worth your time to read it, but if you really must, you’ll find it here.

• 01 July 2009 — “All in all …. an admirable system, with enough functionality to suit even the needs of the advanced amateur, while giving photo enthusiasts a camera they can use immediately sink their teeth into. If you’re a pro, you’ll find this a capable camera for travel photography.” From a review posted 01 July on Photocrati. Read it here…

• “The good: High-quality photos; solid performance; articulated LCD; some nice features, including savable custom settings, in-body image stabilization, Art Filters, and a wireless flash controller. The bad: No video capture; more complex to operate than is necessary.” From the CNet mini-review published 29 May 2009.

Note: I’ve posted the C-NET link here for reference, but note that C-NET seems to wish the camera was dumbed-down rather than feature rich.

• “…combining the feature set of the new E-30 with the compact design of the E-420.” from Digital Camera Review, 11 May 2009.

• “…the E-620 is the camera many Olympus photographers were hoping the E-30 would be…” from Photography Review, 24 Feb 2009.

• “In fact, the specification of the E-620 is so high that it makes as much sense for us to compare it to Olympus’s recently introduced semi-pro body, the E-30, as to the company’s existing entry-level models.” from DPReview, February 2009.

• “…each new Olympus SLR I use impresses me more, as they not only keep introducing intelligent, sometimes painfully obvious features that nonetheless appear on no other digital SLRs, but the cameras are also built well, designed with a lot of thought.” from Imaging Resource, 24 Feb 2009.

• “…placed between the E-4/520 and the E-30, but really it in my opinion is a E-420 … on Steroids.” from 4/3 Photo.

• “The E-620 has the appearance of a modified E-420 but has a deeper body to accommodate the articulating screen and the IS module.” from 4/3 User.

• “But the E-620’s main appeal may be its size. If you’re a backpacker, or just want a small DSLR, it’s incredibly convenient to tote—and to use.” from Pop Photo, 15 April 2009.

• “The E-620 is even more exciting in reality than the specs suggest….” The Olympus Photo Safari Group has prepared a PDF preview report on the e620 which you can download here.

• “From what we can see, the real downside of cramming so much camera into such a small body is noise. “ From another mini-review at PopPhoto.com on 03 June 2009.

e620 ISO and Feature Comparisons (no full review)

• ISO: “…the camera is able to provide usable ISO up to, and in my eye including, ISO 1600.” from Neutralday, 18 May 2009.

• ISO: “…this new Olympus does hold-up well with a sensible approach to noise reduction and processing which retains detail and natural-looking results up to the highest sensitivities.” from Camera Labs.

• ISO: “Canon EOS 500D, Olympus E-620 and Nikon D5000: face to face” in Spanish from Quesabesde.com. Google can translate here. But you won’t really need a translation to decipher results from the comparison photos.

• ISO: “I took some time this morning, to set up a simple test to compare the ISO characteristics of the E-3, E-520, E-620, E-30 and G1.” from the Olympus Photo Safari Group evaluation series, 20 March 2009.

• ISO: “Test Scene Battle: Canon EOS T1i vs Nikon D5000 vs Olympus e620” from Digital Camera Resource page’s image comparison.

e620 Full Reviews — updated 06 July 2009

• 06 July 2009 — “When we reviewed the Olympus E-30, we said it was the best Four Thirds DSLR yet – it didn’t hold on to that crown for long. The E-620 crams most of the E-30’s feature set into a much smaller, much less expensive package that competes more convincingly with its peers than any Four Thirds camera we’ve yet seen.” From DPReview’s full review of the e620 here.

• 25 June 2009 — DC Resource has updated the E620 review posted there saying: “Overall, the E-620 is a camera that I enjoyed using. I found that I did have to tweak some settings to get the most out of it …. but once that was done, I was pretty happy with how it performed.” You can read the updated review here.

• “…the E-620 has many key features of the E-30 but in a much smaller package. “ from Trusted Reviews on 17 June 2009.

• “There aren’t a lot of system cameras out there that do this well enough but Olympus seems to get it right more often than others.” This in-depth review comes from Zone 10, 25 May 2009. Grab your favorite beverage first; it’s a long one and stuffed with good info.

• “Great overall image quality. Excellent features. Stellar design.” from InfoSync World, 21 May 2009.

• “It’s in no way a sleight on the E-620 to say that this camera could fairly be marketed as ‘E-30 Lite.’” from Digital Camera Review, 12 May 2009.

• “Pictures taken with the test camera were sharp and colourful without appearing over-saturated. Low light performance was generally good for ISO settings up to 800, where image noise started to become apparent, particularly in available-light shots.” from Photo Review Australia.

• “The Olympus E620 performed very well – with good focusing times, the ability to shoot as fast as you can compose pictures and a nice burst mode (when doing JPEGs, not so with RAW).” from DPInterface, 27 April 2009.

• “…addresses the perceived weak points of the four-thirds ‘entry level’ machines, namely the small viewfinder, the 3-point AF system as well as improving image quality by promising less noise and extending dynamic range.” from Biofos.com.

• “The Olympus E-620 is in my opinion the best consumer DSLR made to date.” from 4/3 Photo.

• “…appears to be a nice evolution of the lineage…” from Focus Numerique (in French), but the RAW sample photos speak for themselves. Or you can paste that URL into Google Translate for a somewhat fractured translation.

• There’s also a complete e620 review posted in Dutch on Pixelmaia.nl. Whether you understand the text or not, the photos speak for themselves. And of course, Google can always translate for you.

26 June, 2009 — Filed in: Reviews,