The E-30's body in many respects is much improved in nearly every aspect over the E-5x0 bodies (E-500, 510, 520). The E-30's body is actually built better than I had first imagined. In 3 significant ways I would say that it is better than the E-3. First the pop-up flash (or I prefer to properly think about how it functions as a wireless flash controller, it is basically useless as a built in flash for my needs) One area that I think that the E-30 is an improvement is in how the button operates. the E-3 the flash button could easily be bumped when in your bag, which would open the flash and potentially damage the flash. On the E-30 the button cannot open the flash door unless the camera is turned on, and decreases the chances of accidentally opening. The second area I would say that the E-30 is an improvement over the E-3 is that the camera contains a P/A/S/M mode dial. The mode button is the one button which I still struggle to push correctly on the E-3. I have to manually remove the camera from my eye to change. Now with the mode dial on the E-30 I can easily grab it with my left hand to change the shooting mode without moving my eye from the viewfinder, I hope that Olympus keeps this dial in its future models of cameras. The third is no surprise in that it uses the Hyper Crystal II LCD over the original Hyper Crystal LCD. It is a big improvement in my opinion and well worth the upgrade when using it outside.
The E-30 is also an enormous leap over the E-520 camera. Let me first make clear, even though I have used every 4/3 body on the market, I have yet to buy a E-5x0 body. The major reasons are the small viewfinder, the small grip, and the limited upgrades over the E-4x0 series of bodies. (I do have both the E-410 and E-420 bodies though) In reality the E-30 is much more comfortable to use than the E-5x0 camera bodies. First, the viewfinder is closer to that of the E-3, it is slightly smaller than the E-3, but not too uncomfortable to use. I can comfortably manually focus with this camera, which I cannot do with the E-5x0 cameras. It also has 2 control dials in both the front and back, which when shooting Aperture or shutter priority, I usually have the rear one set to +/- exposure. Also, you can use the camera more simply in Manual mode, which I at least use 25% of the time when either shooting with a strobe (or strobes), or in studio setting.
When I saw that the E-30 was a plastic body I was slightly worried that the e-30 would be built flimsily. But to my surprise, it is built very well, and I believe will take the day-in and day-out pounding that I put cameras through, and perhaps it even will bounce better than the E-3 does. The only deficit that I see in the E-30 is the missing weather sealing. Both the mid tier and top tier lenses from Olympus are built very well, and weather sealed, so why isn't this body? The E-30 is missing that weather sealing. But overall the body gets very high marks from me.
The E-30 also allows you to use the HLD-4 vertical shutter release, which for the majority of my shooting (outside of tripod use) is nearly always on my E-3. For me one little bit of comfort is that I really appreciate the ability to use the HLD-4 with the E-30, though I find the HLD-4 awkward to use at times, and wish its overall build was better. I think that it is good that the E-3 and E-30 share the same vertical grip. So it is one less accessory to buy. Secondly, I am glad to see the custom Acratech plate for the E-3 also fits the E-30 perfectly. (My Acratech HLD-4 plate is holding up the 14-54mm lens in the last 2 pictures.)
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