Olympus EVOLT E-500 Digital Camera
- Camera Type: SLR/Professional
- Weight: 0.96 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 2.5 in.
- Resolution: 8.9 Megapixel
- Features: Red-eye Correction
- Overview
-
Reviews
- Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
My Only Regret??I don?t get to use it as often as I would like.
Pros
Dual memory slots, image quality, price.
Cons
Relatively slow lenses, manual focusing not as easy as it could be.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
There are better cameras out there, but not better value for money cameras!
Why This Camera
Simple. Value for money. With the dual lens kit, this is an incredible amount of camera for the money.
I had wanted a DSLR for a long time, well long is relative term in consumer electronics, so let us just say that I've wanted one since they've been viable. When they began to get down to around $1000, it became a possibility, and when I saw a Body and two Lens Kit for under $800, I had to go check it out.
Once I'd handled the camera, I instinctively found myself reaching for a credit card.
A brief rundown on Features & Specs.
The E-Volt 500 is a full featured SLR, allowing the user to select from 10 Exposure modes (including Full auto, program with program shift, aperture priority, shutter priority and metered manual.) as well as 15 "scene" modes. Some of which are available in two ways.).
The menu format is fairly standard fare, and anyone with previous digital camera experience shouldn't really have a problem navigating it. There are the normal array of features you would expect on a DSLR, such as exposure compensation, ISO setting, storage format (TIFF, RAW, RAW plus JPEG, and JPEG), picture size (JPEG storage), RGB Histogram view, rechargeable Li-ion battery, etc, etc.
This camera does have two features that render it fairly unique.
1) Dual memory facility. With this camera, Olympus is showing a dedication to their own XD memory card format, with a slot for this, as well as a slot for a Compact Flash card, which acknowledges that non-proprietary items may be more freely available. Personally I love this feature, which allows me to keep shooting while my principal memory source is out of the camera.
2) Electronic cleaning. By the very nature of the interchangeability of lenses on an SLR, dust is a constant enemy. This camera has a self-cleaning system to shake the dust free of the CCD surface on power-up to help maintain blemish free pictures. If you think this hurts the cameras usability by increasing the length of the power-up sequence, then it can be disabled.
The two lenses supplied in this kit are the Zuiko 14-45mm, and 40-150 zooms. These are USM auto-focusing lenses which range from true wide-angle to long telephoto, but are fairly slow, especially the standard zoom (f3.5/f5.6, and f3.5/f4.5 respectively). Both lenses come with lens hood, which is a nice touch.
There is a pretty much standard set of controls on the camera, but there are too many buttons and dials to go into, and as I said before, the menu is as easy to navigate as any other digital camera, and is packed full of all sorts of options and settings, so check out the Olympus website, then head on down to your local dealer to try them out for yourself.
Using the camera
I'll be honest right up front here, and say that I haven't "tested" this camera as such. I haven't used the lenses at extreme ends of there operating envelopes and looked for chromatic aberration. I haven't pushed the ISO "equivalent" settings to the outer limits and searched for signal noise. I haven't even shot a color card, and closely examined the reproduction on a large screen.
Why? Two reasons.
1) I'm not a professional reviewer doing a write-up for a trade magazine, I'm just "Joe Schmo" giving my opinions on my camera. With the processing software available for digital imaging today, I know that I can correct an imperfect color balance, and with the image quality available from this unit, I know I can frame my shot to allow any aberrations to be removed in the editing. I always allow a bit extra for cropping.
2) It's not really what my photography is about these days. For routine "snaps" I have point-and-shoot cameras, and this gives acceptable results. This camera only comes out when I want to take my time setting up the shot, and enjoy the whole experience, or when I want a bit more quality than the little ones deliver.
Well over 80% of all the shots I'm ever going to take on this unit are going to be at a medium speed setting (I routinely keep the camera set at ISO 200, and will only deviate If I can't get the shot I want), and will be either indoor with manual settings and a studio flash set-up, our outdoor with an aperture priority set-up, frequently with a tripod, and delayed release, in use. The other 20% will mostly be in Program mode, just looking for more than my 5Mp point-and-shoot can deliver.
Using this camera can be almost as easy as a point-and-shoot. If you leave it in full auto mode, all you need to do is turn it on, frame your shot in the viewfinder (and here's the difference, you have to manually twist the lens barrel to zoom), and press the shutter. In probably more than 75% of all situations that all photographers face, this will result in a reasonable, usable, image. It's for that other pesky 25% that the camera has all the other features.
First of all let's look at the manual, and semi-automatic modes.
In metered manual, you can take the settings of the TTL metering, or any variant thereof with in the laws of reciprocity, and manually employ those settings in one of two ways. Either through leaving the lens in auto, then manually adjusting the aperture & shutter speed settings via the menu and settings dial, or, you may elect to take the lens out of auto by manually moving the aperture setting on the lens barrel, and setting the shutter speed via the settings dial. You can, of course, use an external meter if you wish, and you can manually force any exposure settings you wish within the operating envelope of the camera.
With aperture priority, you manually set the aperture by means of the settings dial (current setting displayed on the LCD), and leave the camera to select the appropriate shutter speed (and flash settings if necessary) for the level of light metered TTL.
Shutter priority is similar, but you select the shutter speed, and the camera takes care of the aperture.
So let us now talk of the other (full auto, already dealt with) fully automatic options.
The program with program shift mode, allows full auto control, but you can bias toward either a faster shutter, or greater depth of field, in varying degrees. Then there's the "Scene" selections.
Sometimes you might want to shoot a specialist subject, and either a) can't be bothered to set the shot up manually, or b) don't have the skills to set the shot up manually, so the camera has pre-programmed light maps for these situations. When in the appropriate scene, the camera takes the light map measured, compares it to the light maps in its memory, selects the closest map to it, and dials in the exposure settings for that map.
The available pre-programmed scenes are for Portraiture (3 off), Sports, Landscapes, Macro, Night, Fireworks, Sunset, High-Key, Low-Key, Documents, beach & snow, candlelight, and Children.
The camera itself is light, and comfortable to handle. Dependant on the mode you are in, one-handed adjustments are easily accomplished. The viewfinder contains a plethora of information, which can take a bit of getting used to, but it means you don't have to remove your eye for too many reasons.
The rear LCD contains even more information, and for some inexplicable reason I sometimes have problems navigating through it to make changes. I know it's not the fault of the camera……I sometimes just get confused in my dotage!
When accessing adjustments via the menu, rather than trying to do direct input on the information screen, I've memorized the location of the menu settings I most commonly use, but for others I have to dig.
I've used both lenses, on a variety of subjects, and as you would expect, I mainly use the shorter of two. I even prefer this one at the short-telephoto end of the range for portraiture. I can't honestly say I've used the pop-up flash too much, most of my flash photography is studio based, so I just use the hot-shoe to trigger strobes. I haven't done as much landscape photography with it as I would have liked, but it has yet to disappoint.
One thing I will say though is that I would like the manual focusing to be easier to use, more like a traditional two-touch zoom.
Summary
Operation of this camera can be as simple, or as difficult, as you want it to be. You can take full control, have almost any degree of partial control, or totally relinquish control to the cameras electronics.
The image quality the camera is capable of is excellent (the Olympus site has a gallery with images taken using it), though that quality is by no means guaranteed.
A keen amateur photographer was once showing his portfolio to a friend & his wife, when the wife pipes up "these photographs are beautiful, you must have a wonderful camera".
The photographer was extremely irked by this, but just smiled politely.
As luck would have it, he and his wife were invited to dinner at the friends house shortly afterwards, and as the dishes were being cleared away, the photographer said to his friend's wife.
"That was a delicious dinner, you must have a wonderful oven!"
Good tools make it easier to do a good job, they won't do the job for you. That's exactly what this camera is, an excellent tool. It's up to you how well you use it.
Simple. Value for money. With the dual lens kit, this is an incredible amount of camera for the money.
I had wanted a DSLR for a long time, well long is relative term in consumer electronics, so let us just say that I've wanted one since they've been viable. When they began to get down to around $1000, it became a possibility, and when I saw a Body and two Lens Kit for under $800, I had to go check it out.
Once I'd handled the camera, I instinctively found myself reaching for a credit card.
A brief rundown on Features & Specs.
The E-Volt 500 is a full featured SLR, allowing the user to select from 10 Exposure modes (including Full auto, program with program shift, aperture priority, shutter priority and metered manual.) as well as 15 "scene" modes. Some of which are available in two ways.).
The menu format is fairly standard fare, and anyone with previous digital camera experience shouldn't really have a problem navigating it. There are the normal array of features you would expect on a DSLR, such as exposure compensation, ISO setting, storage format (TIFF, RAW, RAW plus JPEG, and JPEG), picture size (JPEG storage), RGB Histogram view, rechargeable Li-ion battery, etc, etc.
This camera does have two features that render it fairly unique.
1) Dual memory facility. With this camera, Olympus is showing a dedication to their own XD memory card format, with a slot for this, as well as a slot for a Compact Flash card, which acknowledges that non-proprietary items may be more freely available. Personally I love this feature, which allows me to keep shooting while my principal memory source is out of the camera.
2) Electronic cleaning. By the very nature of the interchangeability of lenses on an SLR, dust is a constant enemy. This camera has a self-cleaning system to shake the dust free of the CCD surface on power-up to help maintain blemish free pictures. If you think this hurts the cameras usability by increasing the length of the power-up sequence, then it can be disabled.
The two lenses supplied in this kit are the Zuiko 14-45mm, and 40-150 zooms. These are USM auto-focusing lenses which range from true wide-angle to long telephoto, but are fairly slow, especially the standard zoom (f3.5/f5.6, and f3.5/f4.5 respectively). Both lenses come with lens hood, which is a nice touch.
There is a pretty much standard set of controls on the camera, but there are too many buttons and dials to go into, and as I said before, the menu is as easy to navigate as any other digital camera, and is packed full of all sorts of options and settings, so check out the Olympus website, then head on down to your local dealer to try them out for yourself.
Using the camera
I'll be honest right up front here, and say that I haven't "tested" this camera as such. I haven't used the lenses at extreme ends of there operating envelopes and looked for chromatic aberration. I haven't pushed the ISO "equivalent" settings to the outer limits and searched for signal noise. I haven't even shot a color card, and closely examined the reproduction on a large screen.
Why? Two reasons.
1) I'm not a professional reviewer doing a write-up for a trade magazine, I'm just "Joe Schmo" giving my opinions on my camera. With the processing software available for digital imaging today, I know that I can correct an imperfect color balance, and with the image quality available from this unit, I know I can frame my shot to allow any aberrations to be removed in the editing. I always allow a bit extra for cropping.
2) It's not really what my photography is about these days. For routine "snaps" I have point-and-shoot cameras, and this gives acceptable results. This camera only comes out when I want to take my time setting up the shot, and enjoy the whole experience, or when I want a bit more quality than the little ones deliver.
Well over 80% of all the shots I'm ever going to take on this unit are going to be at a medium speed setting (I routinely keep the camera set at ISO 200, and will only deviate If I can't get the shot I want), and will be either indoor with manual settings and a studio flash set-up, our outdoor with an aperture priority set-up, frequently with a tripod, and delayed release, in use. The other 20% will mostly be in Program mode, just looking for more than my 5Mp point-and-shoot can deliver.
Using this camera can be almost as easy as a point-and-shoot. If you leave it in full auto mode, all you need to do is turn it on, frame your shot in the viewfinder (and here's the difference, you have to manually twist the lens barrel to zoom), and press the shutter. In probably more than 75% of all situations that all photographers face, this will result in a reasonable, usable, image. It's for that other pesky 25% that the camera has all the other features.
First of all let's look at the manual, and semi-automatic modes.
In metered manual, you can take the settings of the TTL metering, or any variant thereof with in the laws of reciprocity, and manually employ those settings in one of two ways. Either through leaving the lens in auto, then manually adjusting the aperture & shutter speed settings via the menu and settings dial, or, you may elect to take the lens out of auto by manually moving the aperture setting on the lens barrel, and setting the shutter speed via the settings dial. You can, of course, use an external meter if you wish, and you can manually force any exposure settings you wish within the operating envelope of the camera.
With aperture priority, you manually set the aperture by means of the settings dial (current setting displayed on the LCD), and leave the camera to select the appropriate shutter speed (and flash settings if necessary) for the level of light metered TTL.
Shutter priority is similar, but you select the shutter speed, and the camera takes care of the aperture.
So let us now talk of the other (full auto, already dealt with) fully automatic options.
The program with program shift mode, allows full auto control, but you can bias toward either a faster shutter, or greater depth of field, in varying degrees. Then there's the "Scene" selections.
Sometimes you might want to shoot a specialist subject, and either a) can't be bothered to set the shot up manually, or b) don't have the skills to set the shot up manually, so the camera has pre-programmed light maps for these situations. When in the appropriate scene, the camera takes the light map measured, compares it to the light maps in its memory, selects the closest map to it, and dials in the exposure settings for that map.
The available pre-programmed scenes are for Portraiture (3 off), Sports, Landscapes, Macro, Night, Fireworks, Sunset, High-Key, Low-Key, Documents, beach & snow, candlelight, and Children.
The camera itself is light, and comfortable to handle. Dependant on the mode you are in, one-handed adjustments are easily accomplished. The viewfinder contains a plethora of information, which can take a bit of getting used to, but it means you don't have to remove your eye for too many reasons.
The rear LCD contains even more information, and for some inexplicable reason I sometimes have problems navigating through it to make changes. I know it's not the fault of the camera……I sometimes just get confused in my dotage!
When accessing adjustments via the menu, rather than trying to do direct input on the information screen, I've memorized the location of the menu settings I most commonly use, but for others I have to dig.
I've used both lenses, on a variety of subjects, and as you would expect, I mainly use the shorter of two. I even prefer this one at the short-telephoto end of the range for portraiture. I can't honestly say I've used the pop-up flash too much, most of my flash photography is studio based, so I just use the hot-shoe to trigger strobes. I haven't done as much landscape photography with it as I would have liked, but it has yet to disappoint.
One thing I will say though is that I would like the manual focusing to be easier to use, more like a traditional two-touch zoom.
Summary
Operation of this camera can be as simple, or as difficult, as you want it to be. You can take full control, have almost any degree of partial control, or totally relinquish control to the cameras electronics.
The image quality the camera is capable of is excellent (the Olympus site has a gallery with images taken using it), though that quality is by no means guaranteed.
A keen amateur photographer was once showing his portfolio to a friend & his wife, when the wife pipes up "these photographs are beautiful, you must have a wonderful camera".
The photographer was extremely irked by this, but just smiled politely.
As luck would have it, he and his wife were invited to dinner at the friends house shortly afterwards, and as the dishes were being cleared away, the photographer said to his friend's wife.
"That was a delicious dinner, you must have a wonderful oven!"
Good tools make it easier to do a good job, they won't do the job for you. That's exactly what this camera is, an excellent tool. It's up to you how well you use it.
See Related Products
Recently Viewed
Most Popular In Digital Cameras
