July 2020 – Olympus E-10

The joy of digital cameras is that, once you have made in initial investment, each photograph is essentially free: there are no film development costs, and no printing costs as the image can be displayed on a computer screen, cell-phone or tablet.  The problem with digital cameras is that each photo is essentially free: there is a risk of just clicking the shutter with little regard for composition, exposure or finding that unique viewpoint. The result is a hard-drive with a few good images, sometimes a great image, and many average and mundane images.   My intention for this page is to highlight some of my better images. [And a quick note – these are my choices. Your opinions may differ!]

The Olympus E-10

In 2000, the Olympus  E-10’s specs were amazing for its time. It had a 4MP 2/3″ CCD, a fast high quality lens with manual focus and zoom rings, a useful articulating LCD, and an assortment of other goodies including flash sync, remote control, USB and A/V output.

The lens was the 35mm equivalent of 35-140mm with a maximum aperture range of f/2-2.4.  It included both aspherical and ED elements giving fantastic sharpness. That lens was threaded and Olympus offered a macro and supplementary telephoto add-ons.  The natural zoom could be adjusted just like on an SLR.  While not a DSLR, the E-10 was the first camera to allow photographers to use live view at the same time as the optical viewfinder. The camera had a ‘beam splitter’ which sent a TTL view of the scene to the camera’s large optical viewfinder and directly to the 4MP CCD.

I purchased a refurbished E-10 from Olympus and carried that camera over most of the world – one camera did everything with no need for extra lenses.  The only disadvantage was the base ISO:  80 is just a bit slow for low light shots and noise was prevalent when the ISO was increased.  Still, I can’t complain, it took some great snapshots and as the images show, sometimes, 4 megapixels are more than enough. The gallery below contains a few of my favorites.