A camera as old as I am

The Olympus Camedia E-10 looks mostly like any modern DSLR or mirrorless. It’s the same size as my mirrorless Panasonic GH5 (which took these photos of the E-10), about the same weight, and . . . much simpler.

Released in late 2000, it’s technically a bit younger than I am. If you consider development and engineering time though, maybe it’s a bit older than me. Then again, if you consider my “development and engineering” time . . . well.

I got this one because:

a. it was cheap (untested, with goopy disintegrating rubber on the grip and focus ring, cleaned off earlier today)

b. because I was curious. How does the best Digital camera Olympus had to offer my birth year hold up 26 years later?

Once cleaning was done, I attached a hefty wrist strap and lugged the E-10 around the house and block to see what I could shoot.

The grain in this photo is very pleasing – it reminds me of some of the expired Fujifilm I shot back when I used more film cameras. For portraits, this camera seems like it could still produce good results.

The lens is surprisingly good too – bright at a maximum aperture of F2.0, which is helpful since the ISO on the E-10 maxes out at only 320. I didn’t notice a significant difference in noise levels from a quick glance, so I left it at 320.

Here, the shadows from the flash & a nearby streetlight created a neat ghost-like effect.

Here, I shot with the lens zoomed out wide – at wide, there is a bit of a fisheye distortion going on which I think is a neat effect.

I just liked this one.

In this photo, you can see the limited dynamic range of the E-10. A comparison between it and my Panasonic GH5 would be good, but I didn’t think to do that before sitting down to write.

Focus seems to work well too. Not all cameras of the early 2000s have great autofocus, but I felt like I could trust this system.

One thing I enjoyed experimenting with was using the pop-up flash as a fill flash (set to -2.0EV flash level) at wide-open. There seems to be a very minor vignette the lens produces alongside its minor wide-open distortion, which I think is a neat combination.

Time will tell if I continue to use this camera, give it away, or relegate it to the “cool looking camera shelf”, but I enjoyed shooting with it this evening, and writing about the results.