E-30 same price as E-620 - or cheaper! (1 Viewer)

I see that in the UK Jessops are currently advertising the E-30 + 14-42 and E-620 + 14-42 for the same price of £599. Alternatively the E-30 body only is priced at £499 and the E-620 is actually £50 more at £549 (although the E-30 is not in stock). I guess the E-30 is not selling as well as the E-620. It makes the E-30 a lot more competitive than when it was first introduced.

Ron

NoSpringChicken said:

I see that in the UK Jessops are currently advertising the E-30 + 14-42 and E-620 + 14-42 for the same price of £599. Alternatively the E-30 body only is priced at £499 and the E-620 is actually £50 more at £549 (although the E-30 is not in stock). I guess the E-30 is not selling as well as the E-620. It makes the E-30 a lot more competitive than when it was first introduced.

Ron

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Interesting stuff Ron. It makes the E-30 look very tempting.

How do you rate it now that you've had it for a while? Can you see much of an improvement compared to your old E-510 (which I still have)?

Steve

It must be just a Jessops deal then. Park Cameras are asking £799 for the E-30 with 14-42 and only £499 for the E-620 with 14-42. The E-30 was always way over-priced.

I think this this price is exclusive to Jessops. The next cheapest prices for the E-30 + 14-42 kit are all about £200 more. I know Jessops are having a tough time at the moment so perhaps they are clearing some of their slow moving stock.

I have just realised that a new E-30 also qualifies for the current Olympus promotion of a free HLD-4 Power Battery Holder or FL-36R wireless flash, which makes it even better value.

Regarding my experiences with the E-30 versus the E-510 I would say the E-30 is better in most areas although the differences are not that great.
- The DR is definitely better and there is less tendency to blow highlights. It still tends to compress the lightest parts of the image, though, losing detail there.
- The viewfinder is much better - bigger and brighter with the info at the bottom instead of at the side. I actually read it more now.
- I really like the two control wheels and use the front one for EV compensation and the back one for setting the aperture. Most of the direct button adjustments can be implemented by pressing the button and then scrolling the control wheel, which works well.
- The auto focusing does seem slightly quicker. The multi focusing points are useful for flight shots and, using them, I now rarely miss the bird and focus on infinity instead. This used to drive me crazy as the lens would have to go through the entire focusing cycle by which time the bird had usually gone.
- I have discovered that I seem to get sharper results under normal conditions by using just the single focusing point. This gives me more control over which part of the bird I choose to focus on.
- The swivelling lcd will be useful for certain applications, although I haven't really used it so far.
- The whole camera feels a lot more substantial and 'grown up' than the E-510 and the extra size makes it feel more in proportion with the 70-300 lens attached. I imagine this would be even more apparent with the 50-200 lens.
- The extra pixels are noticeable when cropping or downsizing for the web and are more useful than I expected.
- Noise seems slightly better than the E-510 but is still worse than on the equivalent Canon and Nikon cameras.
- There are loads of features and adjustments which I haven't exploited so far and plenty of toys such as the level gauge and art filters to play with.

On the negative side I seemed to be getting quite a few shots which were not as sharp as I would have liked. I think much of the time this was because I was using the multi focusing points and the results seem better now, using the single point. I have also been having trouble finding close birds to photograph under good light but I don't think I can blame the camera for that! You can see some of my (mixed) results in my gallery.

Overall I am very pleased with the camera and look forward to getting much more from it in the coming months.

Ron

This is very interesting about the price of the E-30. It has long been thought that the E-30 was overpriced. It seems like Olympus has too many models and needs to clarify their product line. The E-30 has always seemed to me to be the oddly positioned one. I reaqd a lot of speculation that the E-520 line will stop, but the E-620 is more expensive, so it is hard to know.

SUpposedly, Oly will be making some announcements at the end of October, so it might be wise to hold off any purchases until then. There was some speculation on the Fourthirds forum that the E-620 might be getting an upgrade to the E-P1 sensor, although I couldn't get a definitive answer on where that came from or exactly what it meant.

I just read about the new model E-600, a somewhat stripped-down E-620. They took out those silly art filters (no loss!) and multi-exposure (no loss!). Only thing that seems to be missing that might be useful, IMHO, is the backlit buttons. I'll survive without those too. Looks interesting. One wonders about its sensor - same as the E-620, or perhaps using that of the E-P1 (hope, hope!)

This E-600 looks like a good replacement/upgrade for my E-520...

Olympus are getting very confusing with their barrage of new models. The E-600 doesn't feature on the Olympus UK website yet but the retailer Dixons is showing it as in stock at £529.99 including the 14-42 lens. Interestingly, it is the only Olympus camera which they show on the website.

Hopefully my E-30 will see me trough the next few years without any regrets.

Ron

The E-30 body only and E-30 + 14-42 kits are no longer on the Jessops website. Phew, sanity is restored again!

Ron

Nobody outside Olympus knows what their plans are for the E-4xx and E-5xx series or upgrades to the E-6xx series. There are plenty of uninformed loud-mouths speculating about all sorts of things - saddos like that really should get a like. I'll use what I've got and worry about the rest when I come to replace it.

I hadn't even heard of the E-600 till now. When I inquired about E-520 prices at a local camera shop (Melbourne) a month ago they said they were getting hard to get, and they wouldn't get more when they'd run out.

That makes sense, considering that the E-600 is about the same price and has the nicer swiveling screen. Looks like the E-5xx series is ending.

RAH said:

That makes sense, considering that the E-600 is about the same price and has the nicer swiveling screen. Looks like the E-5xx series is ending.

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It's looking increasingly likely that both the E-4xx and E-5xx series are going. The E-600 looks very good value. I can't see anything the E-620 has which would make me buy it over the E-600 unless they cobbled the E-600 so it can't use the E-620's vertical grip.

paulthomas said:

I can't see anything the E-620 has which would make me buy it over the E-600 unless they cobbled the E-600 so it can't use the E-620's vertical grip.

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Yes, I agree. It will be interesting to see reviews of it.