Despite solid color reproduction, the FE-300's pictures ultimately disappoint. At ISO 50 or ISO 100 sensitivity, pictures look reasonably sharp and crisp, though fine textures tend to look a touch smoothed down. At higher sensitivity levels, however, the camera's flaws really start to appear. Surprisingly high levels of noise appear at ISO 200, and at ISO 400, grain consumes nearly all fine details. At ISO 800, noise destroys details to the point where the camera's 12-megapixel pictures would look disappointing coming from an 8-megapixel camera. By the time you get up to ISO 1,600, all fine details disappear into blotchy smears.
For Web sites, e-mails, and smaller prints, the FE-300's photos should be fine in most cases. If you plan to blow up or crop down your pictures to any significant extent, though, you'll need to shoot in ISO 50 or ISO 100 to avoid a major drop in detail. For a 12-megapixel camera, the FE-300's pictures simply don't live up to what they could be. While they are more expensive, compact 8-megapixel shooters like the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100 and Canon PowerShot SD870 IS produce pictures that can be made into larger, nicer-looking prints than the FE-300.
The Olympus FE-300 impressed us as one of the smallest, least expensive 12-megapixel digital cameras out there. Unfortunately, its slow performance and poor image quality makes us reach for our older 8-megapixel stand-bys. If you really want a 12-megapixel shooter, drop the extra hundred bucks for a better model like the Canon PowerShot SD950 IS or the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX100. If price, not resolution, is your hot button, consider instead a solid 8-megapixel camera like the Canon PowerShot SD850 IS or the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T20. Their comparable picture quality and significantly faster performance represent better values, even if with their lower resolutions.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
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Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
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Where to buy
Olympus FE-300 (Silver):
$5.58
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$5.58 | Yes |
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