This camera is amazing. It's small, affordable, but the picture quality is very sharp (sharper than my colleague's non-Olympus DSLR camera).
Some useful feature of this camera (also applicable to other brand/type of camera) :
- Save to JPG and RAW format (2 format) at once. It's very useful when we save it to computer, the file manager will only display the JPG ones. The RAW format (.ORF) can not be displayed automatically. So selecting photo is very convenience when we keep the JPG formats.
- Ability to take some picture in one shot. It's very useful when we are taking moving pictures. We could select the best picture from certain time frame.
- Live View - this feature allow us to see the picture, live, during the composing. Don't forget to change the "autofocus" button to other button (other than the shutter button). Otherwise we have to focus it manually. Usually this feature is found on either non DSLR camera or the top end DSLR camera (could be 10 times more expensive). Frankly I dont use this feature very often, but sometime it could be very useful.
- Very compact & small - I think it's the smallest & lightest compared to the two main DSLR player
- The body is very intelligent, body support IS (Image Stabilization) and ultrasonic dust cleaning - which (based on my experiences) is very effective. I shoot using 150 mm (equivalent to 300 mm telephoto) using stock lens during Ironsmith music show in Las Vegas (from distance), and the picture quality is amazing. No movement distorsion, even though the light was not very bright.
- Camera body & lens are designed from scratch for Digital purpose only, so the body is compact, the lest is small, and light from lens will all covers the picture sensor, meaning that the sensor get 100% of light. Compared to DSLR with non-digital lens : the sensor will receive about 50% of light because the sensor is smaller (about 50%) than a normal negative film. When I took some comparison with my colleague's DSLR, my picture were always brighter, as if my lens has better/faster specs.....
- Good Tripod (I bought Manfrotto 725B - small, light, strong, and very quick to setup)
- Flash Light, I bought Olympus FL-36. This flash light is small but quite powerful. However, I think I should bought FL-50 instead (the largest Olympus flash, but twice as expensive)
- Battery Charger for Flash, I bought Maha Powerex MH-C9000. This charger is very intelligent, it could charge 1 to 4 battery, and can analyze/charge/discharge/break/etc. individually between 1 to 4 battery. Downside : charger is relative large....
- Battery for Flash, I bought Maha 2700mAH (this is the largest capacity available in the market when I bought it)
- Backup battery for camera body
- Lens filter : UV for lens protection (Hoya IR filter also good if you want to experiment with near Infra Red photo !)
- Remote control, required to take BULB photo, very convenient (however I don't have it, I couldn't find it everywhere in my town)
- Gary Fong Diffuser. This thing looks weird when attached to the Flash, but it take a very good close up photo with flash. The picture result is natural, and very sharp.
- Additional Memory. I bought 2GB Olympus xD Picture card, it's cheap, and you could experiment with Panorama photo on Olympus E510 (Panorama will activate the Live View, and you will be guided with several lines & boxes to take good photos to be stitched to form one wide panorama photo).
Biasa at Bali
The photo above was taken in Bali last month, with "Auto" setting from my camera. While the photo below was taken last week with Gary Fong diffuser attached to my flash. You can see, that even though I took the picture below in less than 50 cm, the baby's face still look very natural, and no red eye ! (I didn't use any red eye reduction on the camera - well..., I can't remember if there is one, because I never use it).
Ghia - my nephew
7 comments:
Hi, I'm also a linux user, and I'm planning to buy an Olympus DSLR. I have noticed that to upgrade the firmware, one has to use software provided by Olympus, aka "Olympus Master". The problem is that there is no linux version of this software, and there seems to be no other way to upgrade. Have you found a way to work around this problem ?
Thanks.
Hi Alain,
I am sorry, but I haven't tried to upgrade the firmware, so I couldn't give exact answer.
In my opinion if you need to upgrade the firmware:
1. install the Olympus Master on some Windows machine, then upgrade the firmware from there.
2. ask Olympus service center to help you upgrade the firmware (I believe they can help you to upgrade for free if your camera still under warranty)
I got an E-510 too. Its great. My previous camera was E-20 which is good but i was itching for interchangeable lenses so as to experiment with various focal lengths.
Anyway, I recently bought an Olympus xD card as well. Is there a "howto" somewhere for taking panoramas with E-510 using the xD card?
Btw, am also a linux user -- for the past 8 years or so :-)
Dear Anonymous, wow I just using linux for less than a year :D, and I find it very stable and enjoyable :D
I bought xD card also just to try the panorama feature. I was disappointed when I found out that there is no special software in the camera to assist the panorama photo taking.
So my recommendation if you want to take panorama photo : use tripod, use normal focal length (the wider the lens, the more distortion it gets), and take one by one photo from different angle (with tripod in the center), and the more you try, the more experienced you get.
I am using hugin image stitching : http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
yes.. i use hugin. and here is how i take my photos for "stitching"
take snaps from left to right (i am right handed) as quickly as possible.
then, TAKE snaps from right to left, at full bodily/tripod speed.
always use the mech-switch or remote - yes, my hand does alter the angle a bit.
Load them in hugin and find which blends the best (mostly lighting, and foreground movements) and pick suitable shots.
If you are lazy, you can try stitcher in gimp.
My understanding is that when using an xD card, the camera "unlocks" a panorama mode.
In this mode, the camera will show your previous image in a way that you can overlap your next image. It doesn't do any extra processing or stitching.
The alternative is to simply remember where in the scene the edge of your last shot was.
@Josh -
That was my understanding - but after I did some experiment with E510, the camera did not show any part of previous taken picture using panorama mode, and it will generate separate pictures as if we take photo individually. So we still need image stitching later.
Post a Comment