Olympus e500 vs Olympus e30

The reason i came back to this blog after more than 2 years (wow!) is because i felt i really needed to show the world the benefits of upgrading a camera, namely, from the Olympus e500 to e30.

I think you can see the differences:


By e500


By e30

Settings are 11mm (11-22mm lens), 1/15, f2.8, ISO250, AWB for both cameras.
Both images are unedited except for resizing. Just ignore the image quality as that's not the purpose of this test. You can see that somehow the e30 produces a much brighter photo. Also, the auto white balance is much more realistic on the e30 than the e500. I was shocked when i realised these big differences under low light. I've tried to use the same settings for both cameras so if someone thinks i might have turned something on on the e30 which results in this, do let me know.

Apart from what you can see in the photos, the auto focusing on the e30 is significantly faster too. The very first time i used it to shoot a scene blew me away already. It's that much faster. Don't get me wrong. When i bought the e500 in 2007, i loved it. It performs very well outdoors or with natural light and gives great natural colors. The only gripe i have about it is what it lacks which the e30 doesn't.

So if you are an Olympus user and considering whether to upgrade to an e30, you definitely won't be disappointed.