Olympus E - 5 1 0 hands-on Last fall at the Photokina photo trade show in Germany, Olympus fans were
made of plastic, not metal as you would expect on a more expensive lens.
titillated b y news o f the company's new 10 megapixel SLR. For North
However, the optical performance is solid and the zoom range is very useful,
Americans, the joy was short-lived when they discovered that the model
going from the equivalent (in 35 mm terms) of 28 mm wide angle to 84 mm medium telephoto.
would be available only in Europe. Happily, a few months later, Olympus announced not one, but two, 10 megapixel SLRs— the &Volt E-410 and E-Volt E•510— and these are most definitely available here.
The E-510 is a camera equally well suited for a first-time SLR user or someone that wants a greater degree of control over camera functions.
Currently, the E-410 sells for S299.95 and the E-510 is $100 more. The two have nearly the same specs, but for the extra $100, the E•510 offers
Like many cameras in this price range, the E-510 has a full complement of scene-oriented automatic settings, a s well a s t h e more traditional
mechanical, sensor-based image stabilization and the option to bracket programmed, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual modes. These white balance settings. It is also slightly larger and heavier 1136 x 91.5 x G8 scene modes, if you are not familiar with them, are pre-programmed to mm (w x ha d) and 460 grams for the E-510 vs. 129 x 91 x 53 mm and 375 provide the best combination of shutter speed, aperture and ISO sensitivity g for the E-4101 I n my opinion, the M i f f s mechanical image stabilization for specific shooting situations. Photographing something on a white sand alone is easily worth the extra bucks.
beach or snowy ski slope requires a different setting than photographing
I enjoyed my month with the E-510 and 14.42 mm Olympus 2uiko lens.
something at dusk or in the evening, for example, and scene modes are a
When you consider that the camera plus zoom lens package costs just 5100
designed to save you from the bother of having to figure out what works best
more than the body by itself, the package is quite a bargain. I found the zoom
for those specific conditions. The 510 has two ways to set a scene mode. On
ring on this budget lens a little stiff for my liking, and the bayonet mount is
the mode dial are five icons for the most common situations. You can further customize these by over-riding some of the settings. There i s also a setting labeled Scene on the mode dial, and selecting this opens a menu on the LCD view screen where you can select one o f 14 scene modes (most of these are fixed with no option to over-ride any of the settings). The 510's image stabilization system has two modes (plus i t c a n b e turned o f f altogether). The normally operating 151 mode is joined by 152, which sets vertical stabilization only. Olympus explains that this allows you to pan a fast moving object like a race c a r and achieve a blurred background effect, while still enjoying the benefit of some image stabilization to help keep the main subject in sharp focus. There are features in the E-510 that will make more advanced users happy too. You can save image files in raw data format (raw format i s increasingly p o p u l a r w i t h advanced photographers because o f the
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A u g u s t 2 0 0 7 - H U B : Digits! Living - B.C. L o w e r IVIeinland S e c t i o n
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