It's obvious that Olympus does not consider the E-300 EVOLT a "pro" camera because it has a built-in flash! It's a really cool one that pops up much higher than the tiny flashes usually found in those few digital SLRs that actually offer them. The built-in flash will cover a 14mm (28mm equivalent) lens and lets you mount the new external FL-36 flash at the same time.

The E-300 EVOLT uses the overhyped Four Thirds; let's put that behind us and just make some pictures. Carried over is the way-cool Supersonic Wave filter to keep the imaging chip and your final image files clean.

Initially the E-300 EVOLT will be sold as a "kit" containing the body and the new 14-45mm (28-80mm equivalent) f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. At the same time Olympus is adding the 40-150mm (80-300mm) f/3.5-4.5 zoom that portrait and fashion photographers are gonna love. Camera bodies sans lenses will be available later. The price was not determined at press time, but one of Olympus' target markets is high school students, which tells me we will all be pleasantly surprised by its price point. I'm psyched about the new age incarnation of the venerable Olympus Pen F and can't wait to test a production model.

Porro Vs. Prism
In many SLRs, including the Olympus E-1, light coming through the camera lens is reflected upward to the focusing screen by a mirror, a five-sided solid glass prism, that inverts the image right side-up and correctly left to right so what you see in the eyepiece reflects reality. A mirror prism, a.k.a. porrofinder, replaces the prism with a mirror system that makes the entire package smaller and less expensive. The tradeoff is that less light is passed through this way, but before you start thinking that Olympus is a cheapskate, lots of SLRs use mirror finders because it provides flexibility in design.

Technical Specifications
Type: Interchangeable-lens digital SLR
Media: CompactFlash card (Type I and II)
Lens Mount: Four Thirds mount
Compatible Lens: Zuiko Digital, Four Thirds system lens
Number Of Effective Pixels: 8 million
Effective Pixel Number: Approx. 8.15 million
Image Sensor Type: Full-frame CCD (4/3 FFT-CCD)
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Dust Proof Of Image Sensor: Yes (Supersonic Wave filter type)
Recording Mode: TIFF (RGB 8 bit), JPEG, raw (12 bit), raw + JPEG recording
Preview Monitor: 1.8"
Focus Mode: Single AF/Continuous AF/Manual Focus
Focus Area: Three points
Sensitivity: Auto (100-400)/100/200/400; expandable to 800/1600
White Balance Compensation: Up to +/-7 steps in each Auto/Preset setting
Color Space: sRGB/Adobe RGB
Price: Not announced at press time

For more information on the E-300 EVOLT, visit Olympus' website at: www.olympusamerica.com.