The E-300 is a curious looking camera because the viewfinder mirror is hinged to swing horizontally, which means there is no prism bump on top of the body. This design re-think has not resulted in reduced bulk, it has merely redistributed the weight and volume. It is still a large and heavy camera compared with Olympus film SLRs. And sadly the E-300 doesn’t accept OM lenses.

The construction is reassuringly rugged and the controls are well placed and nicely damped. The kit lens focuses quickly and is sharp. It has a range of 14 to 45 mm which in film terms is 28 to 90. The Four Thirds system exactly doubles the focal length equivalent.

The Olympus E-300 has one killer feature -- like the E-1 it has an ultrasonic sensor cleaning function that shakes dust from the filter in front of the sensor when the camera is turned on and collects the debris on some sticky substance inside the camera. Anyone who has tried to clean a digital SLR low pass filter with a blower brush or expensive proprietary solutions will know just how valuable this feature is.

Exposure is generally acceptable but the auto white balance is erratic. It is easily fooled by commonplace situations, such as open shade. There are 13 different selectable white balance settings in the E-300 which is more confusing than useful. Reliable auto white balance in a digital camera is essential.

Like this: RAW images from the E-300 are exceptionally fine. The camera also captures in TIFF, but be warned, it takes nearly 20 seconds to write the 23mb TIFF file to the memory card.

Dislike that: The shooting information is displayed on the image view LCD rather than in a window of its own as with other DSLRs.

Parting shot: Other manufacturers are yet to embrace the Four Thirds system and until that happens there will be a shortage of third party, cheaper lenses. A few are beginning to appear but the Olympus Zuiko lenses remain the backbone of the system and they are excellent but ruinously expensive.

Sample photos from the Olympus E-300.