Olympus Evolt E500

Bettybooty · Dec 28, 2005

Does anyone here have this camera? I got one and would love feedback and some tips...

Hertz van Rental · Dec 28, 2005

I have the Evolt E300 if that's any help...

303villain · Dec 28, 2005

ive got an e-500, and i love it dearly. what is it that you are looking to find out? one thing that ive noticed, anytime you change modes, it will automatically go back to auto iso, flash, and focus. kind of annoying, but not terrible. and if you wanna go above iso400, make sure to change iso boost to ON. other than that, its cake to use, and if i can use it with no problems at all, ANYBODY can

Bettybooty · Dec 31, 2005

So far I love the camera but I havn't had enough time to actually sit and see what it can do......I hope we can keep in touch as far as tips and anything that might be of interest. Have a Happy New Year! I'm sure we will be in touch......

303villain · Dec 31, 2005

yes that would be great. be sure to try the filters in the b/w mode, its a pretty cool feature. for the price, its full of all kinds of great features and it can produce some great pictures. at the higher iso's it can get a little noisey, but its only super noticeable at 1600. 1250 is ok, 1000 and below are generally pretty good. my only REAL complaints after having used it several times now are: 1) no vertical grip available, olympus told me that there will not be one. boo. 2) how small the viewfinder is, in low light it makes it hard to manually focus, but a magnifier(1.2x i think) is available for it, and will be my next purchase. also, lenses go from really inexpensive but lacking for my needs(id really like an f2 or so lense) to SUPER SUPER expensive. but an adapter to use Olympus OM lenses is available too, although it limits what you can/cant do, specifically AF and the way it meters. i havent looked into it much YET. have fuN and enjoy that great camera!

Bettybooty · Jan 9, 2006

Hertz van Rental said:
I have the Evolt E300 if that's any help...

How is the E300?

Hertz van Rental · Jan 9, 2006

Bettybooty said:
How is the E300?

Like all Olympus cameras - beautiful.
(Been using them since 1974)

303villain · Jan 9, 2006

i think olympus is a seriously under-rated and far too often overlooked company, i know i did it, and i wont do it again. in other news, i went and talked to the guys @ the shop i bought the camera from, they had spoke to their olympus rep earlier, and were told that a vertical grip is in the works, and hopefully it will be out before too long.

wvdalejrfan · Jan 9, 2006

Wow, I never see anyone posting about the E-300. I have one and if anyone has any pointer, tips, or advice I would love them to send it my way. I am sooo new at this and would love to learn more. Now it is me and the trusty manual hanging out. I am just getting started into this and thought what the heck just jump right in and go for it. (Hope that works for me, ha ha). But seriously anyone out there want to help me out I am ALL ears. Thanks in advance. Hope to hear from someone......ANYONE.

Hertz van Rental · Jan 9, 2006

wvdalejrfan said:
Wow, I never see anyone posting about the E-300. I have one and if anyone has any pointer, tips, or advice I would love them to send it my way. I am sooo new at this and would love to learn more. Now it is me and the trusty manual hanging out. I am just getting started into this and thought what the heck just jump right in and go for it. (Hope that works for me, ha ha). But seriously anyone out there want to help me out I am ALL ears. Thanks in advance. Hope to hear from someone......ANYONE.

The best way is for you to ask questions when you have a problem. Otherwise we'll be here all year.
One hint - turn off the auto white balance. Tends to make some odd choices. Set it to 5000K for daylight and an appropriate one for artificial light.

JonathanM · Jan 9, 2006

I've recently bought a E500 (November 05) after a good few years of (olympus) compacts, both 35mm & digital. Prior to this I was an OM10 user, so I havn't been swayed from Olympus & their under rated products, even in recent times.

I've found the camera quite easy to use, don't like the built in flash but can't afford an olympus flash unit yet. Had a problem that the RAW file format (.ORF) couldn't be read by Elements 4, but they have the necessary beta version on the website (the olympus software wouldn't load on my computer btw).

I agree that the viewfinder is too small, but am getting used to it. So far it has been used in a variety of situations, outdoor action & sports, landscapes, indoor family type shots.

I found the review on this website http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse500/
very useful & informative, actually better than the hnadbook. two tips if you buy one, use CF cards as they write faster than XD & the "animation" that comes on whenever you turn the camera on reagrding the CCD cleaning can be disabled to speed up start up times.

wvdalejrfan · Jan 9, 2006

I do have a question for ya. I have my camera set on SHQ 3264x2448 which is one of the better settings. I do have the 4G micro drive and thought wow if I can get the best of the settings and can take tons of pics...why not set it high. Well we live in the "Boonies" and I only have dial up. Well my problem is with these settings it takes me 42 mins. to upload ONE picture. Yeah OUCH. I tried uploading 28 pics today....est. upload was (get this) 20 hours. Yeah those didn't get uploaded...lol. What would be a setting that would still be great prints. I take lots of pictures of my two girls and sometimes want a 5x7 and 8x10 and hate to put it on small settings and not get great quality. Leaving on this setting ensures that great quality print everytime. Any suggestions???

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

303villain · Jan 9, 2006

i honestly havent tried using raw yet, i might have to give it a shot just to see what my puter does with it. ive been using tiff so who knows. one thing i was told is that you can only use olympus flashes(by someone at school) but this is NOT true, i have an old vivitar 3500 flash, and it works GREAT, no problems at all. you can adjust the flash sync time in the menus too, which helps for sure(for simplicity i usually just set it to 1/60).
iagree with using the CF as opposed to xd, but its nice to have the convenience of both(just the other day i ran out of room on my 1gb compactflash and my point and shoot uses xd so i wasnt SOL

wvdalejrfan · Jan 9, 2006

Ok was wondering do any of you use any other lens than the Zuiko lens. I was looking at the micro lens....but not sure I wanna go to another big big exp. right off the bat. Thought maybe a sigma or something till I get all this stuff figured out. Anyone know how well they work?

Thanks

303villain · Jan 9, 2006

i havent used any sigma lenses on my e-500, but my biggest reason for not wanting one is that the 18-125 and 18-50 only open up to f3.5 max, and thats my biggest complaint with the kit lenses, but as far as image quality goes, im not sure which would be better the sigma or the zuiko, but for the price it might be worth a shot, i may pick up the 55-200(or maybe the 18-125) just to give it a shot, but the 3 lenses i REALLY want are the 14-54 f2.8(500), the 50mm F2.0 macro(500) and the 8mm Fisheye(800).
but how nice would it be to have a 30mm F2.8(@ 7K) and an 11-22F2.8 @800.

BUT seeing as how poor i am, i will probably get the the 14-54, and thats it for lenses, then hold out for the battery grip(im told it will have a built in link, and be about 200 dollars)