Olympus Evolt E510 Digital SLR Camera
Olympus Evolt E510 Digital SLR Camera
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OLYMPUS EVOLT E-510 DSL R10.0MP 2 LENS KIT
Olympus Evolt E510 10MP Digital SLR Camera with CCD Shift Image Stabilization (Body Only)
Features
- 10-megapixel CMOS sensor captures enough detail for photo-quality 18 x 24-inch prints
- 2.5-inch Live View HyperCrystal LCD display
- Mechanical Image Stabilization with Supersonic Wave Drive
- Exclusive dust-free technology for spot-free photos
- Powered by one lithium-ion battery; stores images on CF, Micro Drive, or xD Picture Cards
Manufacturer Description
The Olympus EVOLT E-510 digital SLR is a great camera to help you evolve as a photographer. Only Olympus digital SLRs are engineered to be 100-percent digital. Simply put, this means your pictures will have stunning edge-to-edge sharpness that can’t be beat. Olympus’ Live View LCD technology is a unique feature that enhances your picture-taking experience. Whatever life brings, whatever you’re photographing, you’ll capture colorful memories with the E-510’s proven Dust Reduction System and powerful, 10-megapixel imager.
EVOLT E-510 Highlights
Innovative 2.5-inch Live View HyperCrystal LCD The E-510 features a Live View LCD to provide users with the freedom to choose how they compose their shots, using either the LCD or the optical viewfinder on the back of the camera. The Olympus Live View LCD empowers users to easily compose their subjects live on the LCD before the shot has been taken, offering a level of versatility that can not be achieved by other digital SLR cameras that only offer an optical viewfinder. By holding the E-510 away from the face and using the Live View LCD to compose, it’s possible to shoot upward from a low angle for dramatic composition, in close for detailed macro photos of a butterfly’s wings or photographing a parade over a crowd of people.
The E-510’s big and bright 2.5-inch LCD display with approximately 230,000 pixels includes HyperCrystal technology, which offers many times the contrast of conventional LCD monitors, and enables images to be beautifully displayed in vivid color — both in preview and playback. The HyperCrystal LCD also provides a wide viewing angle, which ensures images can be composed from even the most obscure angles. The larger LCD makes viewing icons and text on the camera’s menu a squint-free process.
Detailed, bright, and colorful photos with 10-megapixel Live MOS image sensor The E-510 is loaded with an impressive 10 million pixels for high-resolution photos. The 10-megapixel sensor gives photographers the flexibility to blow up their prints to the large sizes supported by many of today’s printers, or crop the image to print only a part of the image that is important to them. The high-performance Live MOS image sensor in the E-510 delivers excellent dynamic range for accurate color fidelity, and a new state-of-the-art amplifier circuit to eradicate noise and capture fine image details in the highlight and shadow areas.
Mechanical Image Stabilization for sharp images Unlike other digital SLR cameras in its class, the E-510 employs Mechanical Image Stabilization, which compensates for camera movement. This new technology complements Digital Image Stabilization, which compensates for a moving subject. Combined, Mechanical Image Stabilization and Digital Image Stabilization provide a powerful solution, ensuring blur-free photos even in active shooting situations where photographers may encounter camera shake or a moving subject. This powerful combination resides within the camera’s body, translating to blur-free images taken with any of the more than 30 digital-specific lenses.
Dust Reduction System for spot-free images Olympus’ Dust Reduction System produces spot-free photos with the exclusive Supersonic Wave Filter. The patented ultrasonic technology vibrates to remove dust and other particles from the front of the image sensor, and captures the debris on a special adhesive membrane every time you turn on the camera. These spot-free photos liberate users from hours spent retouching photographs at the computer or sending their cameras back to the manufacturer to remove dust trapped inside.
TruePic III for image clarity Olympus’ enhanced TruePic III Image Processor produces crystal clear photos using all the pixel information for each image to provide the best digital images possible for every photo with accurate color, true-to-life flesh tones, brilliant blue skies and precise tonal representation in between. TruePic III also lowers image noise by one step to reduce noise in images shot at higher ISO settings, enabling great results in low-light situations.
Lens compatibility All E-Series cameras support the Four Thirds Standard whereby Olympus and various other manufacturers produce high-quality Four Thirds-compliant lenses and accessories that are specifically designed for digital SLR image capture. Because the E-510 is part of the Olympus E-System, it is compatible with a large and growing range of Olympus E-System accessories to further enhance personal shooting styles and applications. This includes the full line-up of Zuiko Digital Specific lenses and flashes.
Easy-to-use, easy-to-handle light and ergonomic design The EVOLT E-510 is extremely portable, measuring 5.35 inches (136mm) by 3.61 inches (91.7mm) and 2.2 inches (56mm), excluding protrusions, and weighing 16.2 ounces (460 grams) body only. The new camera has a classic penta-mirror design that is light and compact enough to comfortably shoot with all day. Beyond its portable size, the E-510 delivers unparalleled ease of use — from menus that make sense and buttons on the body that are easy to understand and operate, to automatic settings for every imaginable situation.
While the E-510 includes a full range of manual control options to customize your creativity, it also has 28 shooting modes designed to provide the ideal settings for a variety of shooting situations automatically. These include Digital Image Stabilization, Night Scene, Fireworks, Beach and Snow, and Candle Light to name a few, as well as an xD Panorama mode (for use with Olympus xD-Picture Cards). Users also benefit from special color modes and the possibility to apply a variety of Black & White filters.
Accepting both CompactFlash Type I & II, Microdrives, and xD-Picture Cards, the camera provides a choice of data storage options for enhanced flexibility, and it is possible to transfer image files from one card to the other right inside the camera.
Customer Reviews
Great buy on a good consumer level DSLR
I’ve had this about a month, taken it on one trip to Baja California, and shot perhaps 2,000 exposures total. Good image quality and metering. I lugged 35mm SLR’s for decades and switched to point-&-shoots 15 years ago but finally succumbed to the removable lens/TTL viewing desire. My chief complaint about this camera is that it is heavy — not a heavy as most of its competitors, but still heavy. Also the 14~42mm seems overly large, it is almost as big as the 40~150mm telephoto
Like all DSLR’s, the e510 has huge number of control options you can fiddle with, and there is a learning curve to climb (and forget if you don’t use the camera constantly). However, the “AUTO” defaults work well in most situations, and it isn’t too difficult to learn to set the defaults to your taste for apeture and shutter priority modes.
The e-510’s image stabilization does a fair job of compensating for your shaky hand, but even it couldn’t stop the blur when trying to handhold the telephoto at it’s maximum 150mm (300mm 35mm equivalent) range. Plan on finding something solid to rest the camera against.
One note on Olympus’ 4:3 aspect ratio sensor. What it means is that for any given pixel count the Olympus gives you a few more vertical pixels but fewer horizontal ones than a 3:2 ratio sensor like most other DSLRs use. Whether this is important depends on your composing preferences. Since I end up cropping almost everything I print it makes little difference to me.
Unless you already have money tied up in lenses from another maker you want to use I highly recommend this camera.
Olympus e510 review
Fantastic camera. vibrant colors. Flash strobe can get annoying when on auto focus, but that’s easily looked passed with the photo you’ll get.
Great DSLR
I am new to the DSLR world. This Olympus camera is a real improvement over my old Canon A70. I bought this model because of the in-body image stabilization and the good price for the two lens kit. The camera is very easy to handle and lightweight with either of the two short and lightweight lenses. It can fit in a small camera bag with the two lenses. The wide lens is wonderful for landscape and indoor shots. With some tweaking of the settings, the images are color-rich and sharp. I use P mode, vivid, sharpness -2, contrast -1 and noise reduction to off. The image stabilization system works great, and it is now possible to use it with legacy lenses. Indoor pictures without flash can easily be taken with the wide lens and IS on, but the subject needs to stand still in order to reduce movement blur. I have purchased a used 50mm F1.8 OM lens with an adapter, and now very dim light pictures are possible without flash using IS, just the TV on as the light source makes good pictures. The IS is also useful for telephoto pictures, there is no need to use a tripod. I also got a long telephoto of 500mm and I can get beautiful shots hand held.
Now, the downsides. The Olympus digital lenses are quite expensive although of very good quality, but old lenses can be purchased with an adapter, as long as you can focus manually. High ISO pictures have more noise than competition, but I find the noise grain quite pleasing, so I don’t mind. The viewfinder is dark and small compared to my old reflex camera, but the live view is excellent to make accurate focus. The last thing that annoys me is the fact that I can’t quickly delete the picture right after the shot was made, I have to go to review mode then delete it.
Overall, I am very satisfied with my camera. Other accessories I got with my camera are: the two lenses mentioned above (50mm F1.8 and 500mm F8), some macro extension tubes (the inexpensive ones), 4GB CF card, extra battery and an external flash.
