Olympus announces midrange E-30 dSLR

With a significant price gap between the Olympus E-520 and the E-3, Olympus has long had a pretty big hole in its dSLR lineup — a hole populated by extremely popular competitors like the Nikon D90, the Canon EOS 40D, and the Canon EOS 50D. But with the announcement of the E-30, it looks like Olympus is entering the ring swinging.

The new E-30.
(Credit: Olympus)

As with Canon and the 50D, it almost feels as if Olympus is insecure about the audience for this model. Canon introduced its Creative Auto mode, which seems more geared toward the entry-level, and Olympus delivers Art Filters, a set of six effects — Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale and Light, Grainy Film, Light Tone and Pin Hole — which the E-30 applies during shooting.

Just like the 50D's Creative Auto mode, this seems like a very entry-level feature, especially since you can't modify any of the parameters for the effects. A similar reasoning could be applied to the face detection functionality.

The E-30 will have the same extremely fast AF system as the E-3 and will incorporatee a flip-and-twist LCD, making Live View a lot more useful and which none of its big competitors offer. While the viewfinder isn't as big as the E-3's, it still sounds better than most of the others. It has a built-in electronic level, like the Nikon D3, which shows both pitch and roll, as well as more popular capabilities such as a built-in wireless flash controller and sensor-shift image stabilization. This model also introduces an interesting multiple-exposure mode. In fact, unless you need the dust- and weather-sealed body construction of the E-3, the higher-resolution E-30 sounds like it might be a nice inexpensive alternative to that.

Along with the E-30, Olympus is also issuing a refresh for its veteran 14-54mm lens. The Zuiko 14-54mm II f2.8-3.5 (28-108mm equivalent) retains the dust- and splashproof construction for pairing with the E-3 and adds improved contrast AF performance (for Live View focusing); a switch to a circular aperture design, which we're seeing quite a bit of, for better bokeh; and the ability to focus closer than 3 inches (down from 8.7).

The E-30 and lens are slated to ship in Australia from January 2009. No word on local pricing just yet, but in the US the body will have an estimated street price of US$1,299 and the lens will cost about US$599.