Like this: The E-330 has a good on-camera flash. Illumination is even and natural even close up. Because the flash pops up high above the body red-eye is not usually a problem.

As we expect from Olympus the camera has a nice feel with all controls and mechanical actions nicely damped. Auto-focus is quick and precise. Controls are well laid out and intuitive in use, which is just as well as Olympus sticks to its cheapskate policy of not providing a printed instruction book.

The E-330 has the excellent Olympus ultra-sonic dust remover, something all DSLR cameras should have.

Dislike that: We subjected the E-330 to our usual image acid test -- our friendly rainbow lorikeets in the garden -- and we were surprised to see how badly the camera handles saturated reds. Colour bleeding in the red/orange areas on the birds’ chests was so bad that all feather definition was lost. We found a partial solution by turning down the in-camera saturation to its lowest setting. Default colours are absurdly over-saturated. Shooting RAW improves the image quality and the E-330 also records TIFF files which are very large and do not allow the same degree of post-camera manipulation as RAW does.

Parting shot: The joy of using a single lens reflex camera is in the through-the-lens previewing of the image. The bigger and brighter the viewfinder the better. So anyone considering the E-330 should take time to check the small, dark viewfinder to see if you can live with it. We would prefer the Olympus E-500, the cheaper and more conventional alternative. And compared with the Nikon D70s and Canon 350D the Olympus is an expensive camera.

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