By Carlo S. Suerte Felipe
Digital cameras have been becoming more complicated, especially SLR (Single-Lens Reflex) cameras. But How about the Olympus E-500 8.0 Megapixel Digital Camera?
The demo unit that arrived at the Technews testing area was the Olympus E-500 kit. It was a complete package containing the Olympus FOUR THIRDS Digital SLR camera, Zuiko Digital 14-45 mm f3.5-5.6 standard zoom lens, a neck strap, lens covers, a 7.2V 1500mAh Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery, battery charger, USB connector and Multi-connector. In short, all you need is a Compact Flash (CF), xD-Picture Card, or a Microdrive and you're all set.
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OLYMPUS E-500 | |
It's not hard to attach all the accessories. Before we explored the camera, we plugged in the battery charger and charged the battery. According to the easy manual, it'll take five hours to fully charge the battery but we only waited for about 4 hours. And while waiting, we attatched the neck strap and lens to the body - an easy task even for beginners.
Guys from Axis Global Technologies were kind enough to include a 1 GB CF card and a separate Olympus Zuiko Digital 40-150 mm Zoom lens. Both items are not included with the E-500 kit, but if you're not going to capture photos from your front neighbor's window, the standard lens is actually enough.
The back of the E-500 has a nice 2.5-inch, 215.000-pixels Hyper Crystal LCD monitor which displays large fonts when browsing the menu of the camera. We love to look at large fonts so this part earned points. Another thing that caught our attention is the camera's Dust Reduction feature. When the camera is turned on, ultrasonic vibrations remove dirt and dust located on the surface of the CCD (charge-coupled device). While this is working, the Super Sonic Wave Filter (SSEF) indicator is displayed. This feature ensures that you don't have to worry about dust and dirt everytime you change lenses.
Lots of buttons are also located around the LCD, like the Menu and Info buttons, Preview and Erase, Timer Settings, White Balance, Metering, ISO, and Auto-Focus buttons. With SLR cameras, you have a lot of settings to change according to your preference. And despite it being an SLR camera, the E-500 has easy shooting modes which will be very handy for non-professional photographers (or forever newbies like me). There are six creative modes and 15 scene modes - both of which automatically optimize the exposure for the subject.
Using the easy shooting modes, it only takes a half press on the shutter button and the camera does the focusing for you. Each mode is set to fit a certain shooting condition. This feature is very helpful if you always have a hard time focusing the lens and calculating the amount of light needed. The E-500 also has a built-in flash in case you need more light when shooting indoors. It is possible to connect an external electronic flash, which can be bought separately, if you wish.
The pictures that you shoot can either be saved as JPEG, RAW-JPEG, RAW and TIFF image formats. When you save the image as a RAW data format, you can first edit the image within the camera before saving it as a JPEG or TIFF image. On the other hand, JPEG and TIFF images can also be edited in the camera. You can turn the images from colored into black & white or sepia, reduce the red-eye phenomenon of the image, or change the saturation of the recorded image.
Overall, the Olympus E-500 Digital SLR Camera is excellent for photographers of all levels. If you plan to invest on a good SLR camera, The E-500 is a very good deal. Though we had a very short time to spend with this camera, all of us wanted it to stay with us and capture more unforgettable moments.
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