Olympus E-510

Initially I bought this camera from Amazon, but then returned and purchased from craigslist since I was getting a much better price.

My main reason for getting the camera was the sheer value for money that this camera offered. In camera IS, sensor cleaning, good build and features overall.

When I started off with this camera, my opinions were very mixed, most of my outdoor shots ended up having clipped highlights, indoor (high ISO) shots were very poor and I was not completely pleased with the camera, but as I used the camera more and more I noticed how a couple of tweaks here and there brought out so much better pictures.

This camera has features which a most cameras in its range lack and are usually found in higher end cameras. Sensor shift IS, sensor cleaning, dual memory card slots, mirror lock, flash, exposure and WB bracketing, shortcut buttons for WB, ISO, AF and metering are to name just a few.

All in all, this is an excellent camera for the price and I'd recommend it highly to any new DSLR buyers.

- Image stabilization
- Sensor cleaning
- low price
- well place shortcut buttons

- slightly limited dynamic range
- high ISO JPEGs from camera are very noisy, better to shoot in RAW

The Olympus E-510 is an excellent camera especially when you pay less than $650 for the body and two excellent kit lenses (I think it costs less now). I added the Zuiko 70-300mm for another $399 and ended up spending total of $1150 for the body and three lenses that provide 28-600mm. The camera passed the test with great success in my East Africa safari vacation. The features and photo quality are comperable to $1200 (body only) cameras. The camera feels good in the hand thanks to a comfortable hand grip, easy to use, light weight, and compact which along with the price make it apeal to first time DSLR users such as myself. not to mention the live view, in camera IS, and the Sonicwave dust removal system. The lenses are compact and light weight as well.

All of the above.

The one and only thing I had problem with was the small dynamic range. It only accures when a subject has a variation of shady and bright sunlighted areas, the image becomes too contrasty and dark areas become darker and bright areas become overexposed and lose details. You just have to be careful in those situations. The thing I was successful doing is to reduce the EV exposure by -0.3 to -1.0 or even more depending on the situation in order to preserve details in the bright areas, then I darken the bright and lighten the dark in post proccessing.

Nikon D40x
Nikon Coolpix 8800
Panasonic Z7
Canon Powershot S3 IS
Olympus C-765
Olympus C-770

No experience.

Absolutely the best value in its class. Compact, but with a solid feel. I love the Olympus palette, which I first enjoyed in the SP-350. Focus is fairly quick,even with only three points. It's been said before, but I'll say it here... Olympus gives you the best quality right out of the box. The Image Stabilization works well with the 14-42, I haven't tried with the 40-150. Overall a great package. Next year's shooting will be a lot of fun.

Lightweight but sturdy. Only slightly heavier than the Fuji s9000 I had been using.
Body and two lenses covering 28-300 plus flash (fl-36) for less than 1000.00.
Vivid colors right out of the box.

Only 3 AF points. To me this is the one place where Olynpus may have cut corners, but I can work with it.
Low light focus aid is the built in flash. Get the FL-36 or fl-50. They make for a much faster focusing aid.

fuji s9000
olympus sp-350
fuji s602

None needed

A true bargain among digital slr cameras. As with all cameras there is no perfect one and on top of that the way a camera looks at the world is like all eye's of people. Always see in a different light. Pictures are subjective and all the facts in the world do not matter if you do not like the way a given camera takes them,
The E-510 Olympus is a very high quality camera with true state of the art features for digitals cameras. This camera needs to be adjusted out of the box for sharper pictures if that is what you want. The engine "truePic III" is a perfessional process to say the least. The body at the time of this writing is down to $500.00!
Show me any competition in that range that gives so many features.
I started way back with the E-300 and realized almost immedially that the pictures were incredible at times or say as good as any camera would take them. Very devoted to the Olympus line with e lenses that once in your hand you know right away they mean business and higher quality construction than the competition.

Sharp pictures from edge to edge. The first 40-150mm was 3.6-4.5 Fast! Wonderous pictures from that lens. The size of the camera is perfect and build quality is extreme for sucjh a low price. I compare all the time to my D80 and they are close in many ways.
The image stableizer work very well in spite of all the "You need the lenses with this feature built in for best effect". Battery life is great. Dual media is great.
The agressive firmware updates for the lenses and body is wonderful and easy to use on the internet! ISO >800 is very good and above can still be used in many areas of shooting. The speed of shooting is fast. The focus in spite of all the "It has to be MEGA points" works great and in nature photography I use with speed and low light all is well. The camera is not slow to focus from my experience.
A few of their lenses are true deals 18-180mm which is 36-360 is incredible for a wide zoom. Took it to San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park and the pictures are breathtaking! Even when the days I was there were dark and gloomy. They have 70-300mm coming out with a low price abd that will be insane with the 2x factor of the camera. Not seen a cheap lens from them yet. 14-45mm, 30mm macro, 40-150mm, 18-180mm all performed ex in my tests.

Not as quiet as some of the competition above ISO 400. Again if you need it then this may not be your camera. Up to 800 works great for my pictures and I have no complaints in that areas. battery door to some is fragile? Again I havenever had problem with this on the E-300, E-500, E-510 and have taken all over in rough areas for hours.
4/3 at this time has few lenses that are not real expensive for wide angle.
Their comming though...

Again buying a camera is a compromise and always will be. The balance here is extremely great in my view across the board.

Nikon D80, Leica V-lux 1, canon SD 900, Canon 5s IS....

Very good and agressive for answering e-mail and general support if needed on a personal level.

I welcome in-body IS and Live View to expand my photography learning experience. Ergonomically, it is an E-500 clone, and I love the total photographic control my right hand has so that my eye don't have to leave the OVF during shots to change the camera settings.
As for the OVF, not much has changed. Still SMALL!!. ISO800 is good, though.
Coupled this baby with the Pro-Grade 11-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lenses, and I have a very versatile package.
Macro in manual focus is made easy with Live View for precise focus (7-10x magnification) and framing (100% frame coverage and also grid layouts). With Live DoF Preview, I can see the DoF without frame darkening. EXCELLENT!! IS ensures shake is reduced.
The Image Stabilization is good, consistently working at 3-ish stops. My current record is 4.3 stops of stabilization using the 50-200mm F/2.8-3.5 lens @ 200mm.
I have to be very careful with highlights, though. The DR is a bit narrow, so for outdoor shots the exposure compensation should be dialled down -0.3 or -0.7EV. Shadows should be preserved with lower Contrast at -1 or -2, but I need take care of dark noise during post-process.
Other improvements from E-500 include 1) faster AF, 2) better WB, 3) auto ISO, 4) faster write speed, 5) less noise.
Overall the Olympus E-510 is a nice package but needs the Pro-Grade lenses to shine. The cost is about RM8,000 for the 3 amigos 11-22, 14-54 and 50-200mm F/2.8-3.5 lenses, though.

Very good build quality, IS 3+ stops, complete right hand control, compact, feature rich (pro level)

Small OVF, 3 AF points, ISO 1600 usable, DR is a bit narrower

Olympus E-500

None needed, yet.