About a month ago I found a good deal on the Olympus eVolt E300 8MP SLR starter package and I bought it, being anxious to make the move into the SLR world. The Olympus kit came with 14-45mm and 40-150mm lenses for about $1100 total cost. It was the best deal I found anywhere after about a month of research.

Now I've heard lots of folks talking about the Canons and I realize that Canon is the market leader in digital photography. The Nikon D70 has been pretty widely knocked as being bad about producing noise, so I didn't consider it. Why is it that Olympus is not discussed? Most reviews I've read have been positive with no real negative ones. Is there some hidden drawback of which I'm not aware?

g'day Nola,

don't know whether you've read this yet, here's dpreviews conclusion here. My brother in La is a big fan of Olympus, he's messing with a Fuji S1 right now.

nikon and canon are by far the biggest SLR producers so people tend to trust them more, as well as many people already have lenses that will fit those cameras. personally....i know the d70 is quite good on noise. the only area it would be bad is that it only has iso 200, not 100, where of course the canon will be slightly better, but its a very small difference

What a useful synopsis. I've tried wading through other sites that have pages (and pages) of technical specs which I don't have the education to understand, and I discovered little of value. DPReviews has useful information. Thanks BB.

Olympus makes a great product. I had a E 20 and wish I never would have given it up. It was durable as hell and alway took a great picture no matter what. I've heard nothing but good on the E300. The great thing about olympus is that they have one of the best warranties on the market, and can be service any were in the world with out a catch to it. In some cases depending on your stuation they will replace it with out a problem.