Olympus E-620

Opinion: I really enjoy shooting with this camera.
more on that later

Opinion: Had my E-620 'repaired' twice for a misalignment of the viewfinder ["viewfinder tilt"], unsuccessfully.
I own a DSLR precisely because I want to frame my images exactly, not by 3degrees anticlockwise...
So I bought an E/520.
Second reason why I´m selling E/620 is that I believe its engine is´tuned up' too much.

BTW The button for setting the ImageStabilization is rather useless; I can do without it.

Opinion: I've had an E-600 for almost two years now. I understand it is the same e-620 but without three art-filters and without aspect ratio control. Hence I think that my comments will be applicable to the e-620 as well.

First of all, the jpegs you can get from this camera are just great, rarely have to do any sort of editing afterwards. Nice punchy colors with good highlight control. Therefore shooting raw is an option I don't use very often (however, keep in mind I'm an amateur). I mainly use this camera for portraits and landscapes, and in this capacity it is an excellent companion and it's a camera that makes you want to shoot photos.

If you are going to shoot in dark situations, it takes some work to getting good results out of it. Also, I've found that it is better to turn off (set to normal) the gradation as it does induce noise in the dark areas and you won't loose much detail as this camera with NF in low captures quite a lot of detail and, in my opinion, there is no need to rescue the shadows.

All in all, a great camera which I love dearly and will not be changing any time soon. Very well built, reliable and which produces great images on a clear day.

Opinion: I upgraded from an olympus E410 in november 2009 and this camera is so much better in every way
I would recommend it no problem.

Opinion: I bought this camera a week ago and, so far, I love it!!

From all the SLR I was lucky to use (Nikon D40, D50, D60, D5000, D200, Fuji S5 Pro), the Olympus E-620 is my second favorite right after the S5 Pro. The only reason why it isn't the first, is it's very small viewfinder and noisier images than the competition but, on the other hand, the images (JPEG) produced by the 620 are sharper than his peers.

The automatic white balance (in natural light) is the best I have seen so far and the metering is, most of the time, very good. The tone and dynamic range are also very good! Overall, the photos produced by this camera have a natural look, something I was looking for.

In sums, I am a very happy camper! :)

Opinion: I love Olympus.

Opinion: I came to own an Olympus E-620 by a rather roundabout route. I wasn't looking to update/upgrade any of my equipment until my much loved "Old Faithful" Fujifilm FinePix S9600 failed. This DSLR-like super-zoom bridge camera has served me well for many years, and produced excellent images, but one day it simply failed to boot-up. Puzzled, I tried new batteries, and even an external mains adaptor, but all to no avail. Further diagnostic work in my electronics lab revealed a catastrophic failure of its DC-DC convertor. Although repairable, the costs were prohibitive as I could replace the camera for only a little more and benefit from more modern technology. I would have replaced it with another Fuji but my local dealer didn't stock them, but he did have a special offer on an E-620 with two kit lens. As I already owned an EP-1, and this camera used the same batteries, charger, flash, wired remote and wireless remote the choice was obvious.

As it uses essentially the same sensor as the EP-1, I had expected the images to be comparable, but what really surprised was the quality of the kit lens. Although they are all-plastic, even the bayonet mounting, I was not expecting much - other camera's kit lens have been something of a disappointment, but these are really good. The edge to edge sharpness of both the 14-42mm and 40-150mm lens is excellent. True, an f3.5 lens cannot be described as "fast", but with the ability to use higher ISO speeds to make up for this, the results are very good. Certainly there are better lens, but, I suspect that what you are really getting is better, more rugged build quality as well as a faster lens, but not a huge improvement in sharpness. Perhaps someone might like to comment on that. The viewfinder is a little on the small size, but perfectly adequate, even when wearing spectacles such as myself. The live view feature is welcome, although this does significantly impact battery life. The ergonomics are fine for me as I have somewhat small hands, but the diminutive size of this camera does mean that there is not a lot of real-estate for the buttons - those with larger hands may find it a little cramped. I particularly like the small size, compared to my Canon DSLR let alone my Sigma it is positively tiny.

The next surprise was the fact that there is very little incentive to use RAW mode. The internal image processing engine does an excellent job such that JPEG fine images are virtually the same as their RAW equivalents especially with the minimal RAW processing capabilities of the Olympus Master software. It is possible to extract just a slight amount of extra detail from the RAW images with third-party software, but this is only apparent to pixel-peepers - printed images side-by-side show no real difference.

The Super Control Panel feature allows one a very quick and intuitive way of changing the major parameters such that the direct action buttons are seldom needed. The enormous amount of camera customisation is amazing, and I suspect that most users will have little need for it, but should you wish, it is there. My only suggestion would be that in some cases it might be an idea to permit these low-level customisation adjustments to be performed via the camera's USB port and a computer.

So, reasonably fast and responsive; excellent build quality; excellent overall image quality especially from the kit lens; small and compact; very useful multi-way LCD, so what about the downside?

Battery life is only average. Not surprising considering the small battery size. It helps to avoid using live view, flash, and art filters. The latter feature I regard as a waste of time, I much prefer to edit my images on a computer rather than in-camera. I am also somewhat annoyed that the panoramic stitch assist mode only works if an Olympus xD memory card is inserted - come on, Olympus, there's no need for this card, it was never popular.

Overall, I'm very happy, if you are in the market for a small, light DSLR whose lens you will probably not have to upgrade, whose image quality is on a par with almost anything else, and whose feature set should keep you happy for several years, then this certainly should be high on your list.

Opinion: This is a review of an E-600 I bought, not an E-620.

I got my E-600 from Currys (UK) with a 40-150mm for £408. It was the dispaly sample and I had to get a lens cap and a hood for the telephoto (the usual extortionate £30) - so total cost £443.

I believe the difference is the art filters, no additional aspect ratio and no backlit buttons. I also understand that the RAW fie is different - but I quite like Olympus Master. Using it for a week it is very impressive, tiny, easy to use but flexible, well made and capable of the most gorgeous colour. It all fits in a Billingham Hadley Digital bag I already had - so a superb lightweight outfit.

It is a lightweight complement to my 5D and it fits the bill perfectly. I'm very impressed. Maybe I'll start believing in that "Olympus colour".

Opinion: As a parent I wanted to be able to take action-shots of my
daughter without the bulk of a mainstream SLR. I considered
m4/3s cameras. Call me old fashioned, but I like to use a
viewfinder. Panasonic G1 and GH1 are close to what I want but I
am not convinced contrast-autofocus is there yet. What I wanted
was -- a lightweight interchangeable lens camera with fast
autofocus, shallowed depth of field than a point and shoot (to
emphasize the focus), no shutter lag, no blinding me out during
continuous shooting, flip-out LCD with good liveview for those
times when you have to get into awkward positions, and a
decent low light image quality for 8x10 prints and HDTV
slideshows. I don't care for video in SLRs because I think a $150
Flip or my PowerShot G10 is better suited for video than a bulky
SLR.

I am not a pro and I prefer to spend the time with my family and
outdoors taking pictures rather than post-processing. Hence,
another requirement was that out-of-camera JPEGs must be good
straight out.

I also wanted to have access to some legacy manual lenses, just
for fun.

Olympus E-620 meets all of these requirements. I got my kit with
14-42 and 40-150 for $700 at J&R in Manhattan. It is made of
plastic, but it doesn't feel plasticy like the competition. Its image
quality is excellent up to 800, acceptable up to ISO 1250, and
reasonable up to 3200. Manual controls are awesome and well
laid out for a mid-level amateur camera. You can get to all of the
settings you need from direct access controls. Live View is
impressive for an SLR if you need it. Manual focus is convenient
with live view if I want to play with a lensbaby. Kit lenses are
great.

Metering and exposure is right on spot. I know some people feel
they need to overexpose by 1/3rd -- sometimes that is true, but I
find that for pictures of people it is right on. I read somewhere
that E-system was designed for photographing people and
activities involving people -- and at that E-620 excels. The popup
flash is perfectly matched to the rest of the system and highlights
the subject just right w/o casting noticeably ugly shadows on the
walls -- I don't feel the need to buy an external flash quite yet.

One note on ISO -- higher ISO performance of competing mid-
level amateur SLRs are like T1i, D90, etc. don't make a bad lens
better or a dark scene brighter. Poor lighting conditions are
challenging and to get good results you have to work with the
scene, not try to force it on your camera. ISO alone won't help
you -- see my note on the flash and exposure. ISO is just one
variable.