Olympus E500 Kit DSLR with 14-45mm lens [equiv. 28-90mm] [8MP]

I bought this camera as an upgrade from my reliable Olympus C765UZ which was starting to have it's limitations. I have found the E-500 very easy to use, already using an olympus digital compact has helped as I am familiar with the menu format and the symbols used on the body of the camera. Optically it is very good, giving clear sharp images and the use of the RAW format will give avid photoshop users hours of fun. I am using the camera for mainly wildlife & landscape photos at the moment and I have not been disappointed. Like all new products it will take time to learn fully but with digital cameras the auto function takes care of most of the brain taxing functions. I do have one slight gripe, when using the auto setting it will use the flash rather than adjust the aperture or shutter speed to compensate for lower light levels even when the focus is so far away that the flash will have no benefit; but when you find it in the menus you can disable the flash. For the money you pay you get an awful lot of camera, all of the professional reviews have given it a good rating and as a first step into Digital SLR photography it makes a sensible choice. Just don't forget to include the cost of memory cards into your budget, the E-500 takes both the usual olympus XD storage cards and compact flash cards in two slots so you can run both at the same time. With both cards used this will give you a maximum of around 5Gb storage if you spend the money on the storage cards. I am currently just using my 1Gb XD card which gives me 74 RAW format images yet I am sure that for most people using the SHQ or HQ setting will be quality enough and give you enough shots for your holidays. If you choose this camera you will not be dissapointed, it is easy to use and very light - the lens being most of the weight. A great choice - but I would say that I own one!!

I chose this SLR camera over the Canon `Digital Rebel' largely as could take the xD cards I have, and I could get the official twin Olympus kit lens for £100 less than the Canon offerings. Plus having lost a `sealed' compact to dust on the sensor the Olympus vibrational dust removal CCD system is great idea. Basically the camera feels like a traditional SLR, holds very well, and is relatively easy to use, although many useful things, and there are a lot of them for your money, are hidden in the various menus - like ASA's above 800 needing an on/off to activate. See the independent site dpreview.com for an excellent review of this camera and it's main digital SLR competitors available on Amazon. Picture quality is very good, although rather noisy above 400 ASA. Having to swap lenses to get more than 3x zoom is also a bit of a pain. I have got used to a 12x zoom compact, and I tend to leave the telephoto at home as the camera bag is rather weighty with it stashed in. Naturally you need to get a generic second battery, although the supplied battery is good for few days intensive shooting. Like all digital cameras, the excellent back LCD screen is at very high risk of damage from face contact and scratches so I applied a [PALM branded] screen protector, cut to size, before use.

The only downside is the painfully slow USB 1 (no USB2) transfer speed (up to twenty minutes for a days shoot), no top notch autofocus (up to three focus areas not five) and the stupidity of no distance markings on the manual focus ring. So when you try to use manual focus in the dark you find it virtually impossible to set focus manually, whereas you could easily twist to say 3m or infinity on the lens ring if it was there (or shown in the menu). The focus ring just spins round and round and you don't even know which way the focus is going - although I believe this does prevent the manual focus damaging the focus motor. There's also no focussing light aid other than the very short range flash. Having to use the pop-up flash to focus in the dark is also a real pain unless your wish to dazzle the subject (I never use it and switch off the auto pop-up and flash focus aid - the camera focuses far better without it anyway). It also tends to overexpose a little and you often forget to compensate after it returns to default - if you stay on Auto or suchlike it does remember settings though. It's also very noisy at high ASA compared to the Canon and Nikons, and unfortunately I find I use the camera a lot above 400 ASA. Plus you have to pay a little extra to upgrade the limited supplied software to the excellent Olympus Master Pro version - rather annoying on a camera of this price.

But if you can live with the downsides, the camera has a lot to recommend it. I couldn't find any SLR for the price that had everything I wanted, and this SLR offered a good compromise. It has so many features that I'm still discovering some. I also bought the Olympus EX-25 'extension ring' from Amazon for real macro shots. Keep your quality 12x zoom compact though as this is large, intimidating, noisy, obtrusive and heavy beast for some places.

I've recently purchased the E-500 in the US where it's released under the EVOLT name and I'm extremely happy with the camera's performance.

The E-500 has replaced a FujiFilm Finepix S5000 which was starting to show it's age with a slow shutter and taking an age to warm up from cold. I needed a better wide angle lens and a decent zoom so purchased the kit version which also comes with a 40-150mm (80-300mm equiv.) zoom lens and both are proving to be extremely good with adequate speed but very clear optics.

I chose the Olympus over the Nikon and Canon for the feel and the huge LCD on the rear which makes reviewing images much easier and am very happy with my choice.

The camera is based around the Four Thirds system developed by Olympus and there are now a large enough number of lenses to suit most users and lens mounts for other systems are also available - a great feature of the 4/3s system is it's reduced depth allows lens mounts to add depth and restore the correct depth for most lenses. This system also brings benefits in matching sensor to lense sizes - the lenses are exactly the right size for the sensor and the focal length multiplier is 2 - much easier to work out than 1.6 on other cameras.

If you're looking for an entry level Digital SLR I'd highly recommend the Olympus.