Photo answers review
Photo answers rating
The resolution of the Olympus E-510 has been upped to 10MP, which is the standard for recent D-SLRs. There’s a Live View feature too, with the addition of a sensor-shift image stabilisation system and, of course, the standard Olympus Supersonic Wave Filter, which reduces the amount of dust sticking to your sensor.
Like most Olympus D-SLRs, it has a dual card slot for both CF and xD cards, so those upgrading from Olympus compacts can continue to use their xD cards or invest in CF cards instead. It certainly looks as though Olympus has made a special effort to make sure that all the buyer’s feature requirements are fulfilled in the E-510.
The E-510 shares none of the square, chunky design of the E-500 but is considerably more sleek and stylish. In fact, it bears a striking resemblance to the E-410 but with an added grip and slightly larger dimensions.
There’s now a more defined ridge on the main grip that gives you a solid hold on the camera and is extremely comfortable for prolonged usage. The E-510’s handling is a massive improvement over the E-500, although this wasn’t bad to begin with, and is definitely the more comfortable option over the more compact E-410.
The E-510’s new image-processing engine is fairly impressive and does an awesome job of writing the images to the memory card. It clocks in at 1.5 seconds for a RAW file and 2 seconds for SHQ (Super High Quality) JPEG.
The continuous shooting buffer is equally as good with the camera keeping up 3fps (frames-per-second) to fill an entire 1GB CF card without a delay and no agonising wait afterwards either, as the data is written to the card as it goes along.
As on all current Olympus D-SLRs, there are only three autofocus points, which is a considerable disappointment. This lack of autofocus points is the sole reason the camera didn’t score higher for performance, and this affects the camera’s overall score.
Product Specifications
| Weight/size (WxHxD) |
460g/136x92x56mm |
| Effective resolution |
10MP |
| Lens mount |
FourThirds |
| Focal length conversion |
2x |
| Aspect ratio |
4:3 |
| LCD monitor size |
2.5in |
| File formats |
JPEG, RAW |
| Card type |
CF x D |
| Exposure modes |
Auto, program, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, manual and 18 scene modes |
| Metering modes |
ESP light metering, spot, centre-weighted, highlight & shadow |
| Autofocus |
Three-point |
| ISO range |
100-1600 |
| Battery type |
1x BLM-1 Lithium-ion |
| Software supplied |
Olympus Master |
| Start-up time |
Less than 1 second |
| Write times |
2 seconds (JPEG), 1.5 seconds (RAW) |
| Shutter speed range |
60 seconds to 1/4000sec |
| Flash sync |
1/180sec |
| Continuous shooting speed |
3fps for unlimited JPEGs or 11 RAWs |
