Olympus Evolt E500

[JonathanM]

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

Interesting to hear about the flash, as I've been looking for a new flash, but still have the one from my OM days. I have a feeling that may be a bit too old though......

I know trigger voltages can be a big problem on the newer DSLR's so I'm going to try & seek some advice from my LCS before trying the old flash or parting with the cash for a new one.

regarding files I'm on broadband, so don't really have that problem, but I have noticed that even with 2 meg bb speed there is a noticeable upload time, I wouldn't want to try on a standard dial up.
I understand there is some compression software that can speed dial up connections to near, but sub broadband speeds. not sure what effect that may have on picture files though.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

You should find most flash units and their trigger voltages here:
http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html
From what I can find, Olympus digitals can only handle trigger voltages between 3v and 6v.

 

[JonathanM]

I've actually seen & been the successful bidder on a Metz 54 MZ3 flash, complete with the appropriate Olympus DSLR adaptor. 1/2 the cost of the equivalent Metz new, so I'm eagerly awaiting this.