Olympus E-Volt 500 thoughts?

DarkJudge · June 12, 2007

I've been debating upgrading to a full blown DSLR and was wondering if anyone had a Olympus E-Volt 500. If so... is it suitable as a Professional tool? I've read a ton of good reviews on it. It looks like a step up from a Samsung S500, which is what I have now and I'm operating most of the manual stuff on my own, but still feel I have quite a bit to learn.

Since my budget is not exactly large, that's part of the attraction to me. Two lenses for around 600?? Seems decent to me.

Can anyone give me their thoughts on this camera as well as the stock lenses? Is this a good SLR or more of a glorified Point and Shoot?

Desmond · June 12, 2007

I can't comment personally on the use of it but one of the local camera dealers bought himself one and loves it . The olympus dust reduction is also close to perfect which is a big plus . I don't think you will be disappointed with it .

Bob&Glennie · June 12, 2007

We have a 500 and an E1. The E1, even at 5mp , is clearly the better camera if you can get your hands on one. That is NOT to say that the 500 is a slouch. The dust reduction feature REALLY works and after 2 years of hard use in the bush, on canoe trips with lens changes many times daily our 500 is still spot free. It's a very easy camera to use. The entire (almost) menu is displayed on screen at a glance. The only feature that I use a lot that is buried in the menu is the mirror lockup. But at least it has a mirror lockup. Try to find that on competitively priced competition! It also has one touch DOF preview and even the kit lenses are very good with all metal mounts.

Image quality at ISO sensitivities up to 400 is right up there with the best of them. Jpeg compression at highest quality is only 1/2.7 ... hardly compressed at all. Raw is fabulous and noise reduction is a standard, always on feature in the Olympus Master raw conversion software. It will also record in .tiff.

The only downside that I can fault the camera for is high ISO performance. It gets noisy at ISO 800 and above and the built in noise filter doesn't do much and takes up a lot of writing time to the card. Here is where the E1 wins hands down!

Also, the XD cards are slow but it writes fast with CF cards and images are transferable, in camera, from one card type to the other.

Construction is based on an aluminum sub frame with polycarbon fleshout. The rubber hand grip, although very comfortable will loosen as it becomes saturated with body oils and sweat. I fixed mine with contact cement.

YES! You can use this very versitile and easy to operate camera in a professional capacity as long as you bare in mind that it is not waterproof nor is it as tough as the all magnesium E1. That said, we have not managed to break it or drown it, and we are rough on our cameras.

Bob

swintonphoto · June 12, 2007

I have been using the E-500 as my primary camera for my photography business for over a year now. I love it. I think it is of professional quality, and have never had a client question how it looks. It has been the most popular of all the DSLR's Olympus has released to date. I think it is really easy to hold, and feels very sturdy. The kit lenses are very good as well - better than kit lenses from the competition in my opinion. Reviews echo this opinion as well. In regards to ISO performance - it does excellent up to 400, good at 800, and decent at 1600. As long as you properly expose the images, I have had very usable images at 1600.
I think the camera is easy to use, extremely feature packed, and extremely well priced. I bought my 2-lens kit for $799 and I would pay more than that for it again. It is very well priced right now, and I think it is a great camera. It has total manual control available if you prefer working that way - as with any other DSLR.
In terms of speed of card writing - The E-500 has recorded some of the fastest write speeds of any DSLR ever made. The biggest difference will be in the card you use. Phil Askey on DPReview clocked it's raw write speed at 9,854 KB/sec. Thats fast!
I am an Olympus fan to the core. I think their lenses are awesome (they have lots of money invested in optics - they are also well known for manufacturing binoculars, medical optical equipment, etc.) and the prices for the camera bodies are better than the competition. The seller for me is that I don't ever feel that I am unable to make the images I want due to limitations within the camera - if there is a problem with the pic it is usually photographer error. I am also a big fan of the 4/3 format. Most print sizes used regularly (4x5, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, etc) are more similar to the 4/3 format than the 2/3 format other DSLRs use.
Olympus has just announced the release of the E-510 with a few new additions, however, the 2-lens kit will be around $900. So, the price of the E-500 will be really unbeatable. And I am not running out to upgrade mine.

Bob&Glennie · June 12, 2007

swintonphoto wrote:

I have been using the E-500 as my primary camera for my photography business for over a year now. I love it. I think it is of professional quality, and have never had a client question how it looks. It has been the most popular of all the DSLR's Olympus has released to date. I think it is really easy to hold, and feels very sturdy. The kit lenses are very good as well - better than kit lenses from the competition in my opinion. Reviews echo this opinion as well. In regards to ISO performance - it does excellent up to 400, good at 800, and decent at 1600. As long as you properly expose the images, I have had very usable images at 1600.
I think the camera is easy to use, extremely feature packed, and extremely well priced. I bought my 2-lens kit for $799 and I would pay more than that for it again. It is very well priced right now, and I think it is a great camera. It has total manual control available if you prefer working that way - as with any other DSLR.
In terms of speed of card writing - The E-500 has recorded some of the fastest write speeds of any DSLR ever made. The biggest difference will be in the card you use. Phil Askey on DPReview clocked it's raw write speed at 9,854 KB/sec. Thats fast!
I am an Olympus fan to the core. I think their lenses are awesome (they have lots of money invested in optics - they are also well known for manufacturing binoculars, medical optical equipment, etc.) and the prices for the camera bodies are better than the competition. The seller for me is that I don't ever feel that I am unable to make the images I want due to limitations within the camera - if there is a problem with the pic it is usually photographer error. I am also a big fan of the 4/3 format. Most print sizes used regularly (4x5, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, etc) are more similar to the 4/3 format than the 2/3 format other DSLRs use.
Olympus has just announced the release of the E-510 with a few new additions, however, the 2-lens kit will be around $900. So, the price of the E-500 will be really unbeatable. And I am not running out to upgrade mine.

The 4/3 aspect ratio is a great feature that I forgot to mention and it is little understood why it is such an advantage. As Swintonphoto said, it fits all the standard sheet sizes and the big advantage with that is that you get to print almost all of your pixels. You don't have to crop 14% of your camera's resolution to fit your image on a standard print size, unlike an APS format sensor which only fits 4x6 and requires that you loose 14% off the ends of your frame to print any standard aspect ratio. What good is it to boast of great resolution when you can't use it all? This is one of the reasons why the E1 at 5mp is sooooo good. I can print more usable pixels at 4/3 aspect ratio than a 7 mp 2/3 aspect ratio camera.

garymiller · June 14, 2007

swintonphoto wrote:

In regards to ISO performance - it does excellent up to 400, good at 800, and decent at 1600. As long as you properly expose the images, I have had very usable images at 1600. E-500 will be really unbeatable.

I too have had an E-500 for about a year now. I am constantly amazed at the quality of the shots it produces when operator error/ignorance doesn't get in the way. It is one fantastic camera and is by far the best buy on the market with the 2 lens package.

On the ISO issues, I agree totally about the quality being superior to 400, but I am not personally happy with the noise at 800 and I feel that it is a rare shot that is really usable at 1600 (may have to do with my skills, too). This is the main area where I see some other cameras really perform better. High ISO quality could be improved in my opinion.

I had my first opportunity to shoot officially for a PRCA pro rodeo this past weekend and this gave me my serious workout with the motor drive capabilities. I was very worried about the capture/write speeds for the fast action sequences, so I purchased a new ultra fast Sandisk Extreme III CF 4 Gig card for the purpose. I shot highest quality JPEG and the card practically outran the 4 shot buffer. I could shoot 4, press again and another 4 and another... I got one 20 shot sequence on an 8 second ride and I know I paused shooting at least once during the ride. It was extremely fast with the new fast technology card. I switched back to a XD card and it was like molasses in comparison.

The graphics person at our paper said they were some of the clearest and detailed rodeo shots she had processed over the years. The E-500 held it's own against some of the real expensive competition shooting in the arena. I could not keep up in the low light, high speed night performances however, but the pros that were shooting then were holding $10,000+ worth of gear in their hands.

I highly recommend the camera.

Gary Miller

swintonphoto · June 15, 2007

If you want some more info, here is a site that does in-depth reviews of Olympus products. Some good information. The creator of the site uses the E-500 as his primary camera:
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/oly-e/index.html

anwmn1 · June 15, 2007

I shoot Olympus as well. My first purchase was the E-500 dual lens kit and have since added a 300 for back up, the FL36 than led to the FL50 flash, and have added 3 additional lenses. I will look into the new pro camera replacing the E-1 when it comes out- whenever that will be.

Like everyone else posted so far I love the 500. I feel the 2 biggest short comings are the High ISO limitations as well as the frames per second. In most cases these are not real issues unless you are shooting a lot of high speed action photos. This is the case for me when doing some club racing photos in the bright Arizona sun. If this is your primary shooting subject than go straight to Canon- it wins in these areas hands down.

For most everythng else I think the Olympus is a very nice choice and delivers high quality images. I usually only shoot at SHQ jpg but have taken photos to 20x30 that are still very sharp and clear. I like the feel of the camera in hand and the lcd size and menu layout.

If you get an Olympus make sure you purchase the FL50 flash- the 36 is not enough.

good luck

Olympus E-Volt 500 thoughts?

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