Summary: E510 / E520 | Awesome - Gem of the mid level DSLR:

Comment: Though I have E510. I actually tried and tested the E520 as well and picked E510 for the 2 kit lens deal and the extra features E520 has over E510 which I rarely care about. I thought to add my E510 review under this to give the readers a better idea about how the Olympus E510/E520 wins over the Canons XSi and Nikon D80 we tested. Hope this helps.

Myself and a Canon lover Friend and a Nikon lover Cousin were hunting for DSLRs. We had Film SLRs and few Point & Shoot Digis. We don't want to spend $1500+ for the DSLR and was waiting for the price to come down. When it reached $1000 mark, we started hunting for it and tried out few DSLR models in-stores by carrying our own flash memories and took few sample shots at the same lighting, focal length, ISO, f-Stop and Shutter and narrowed down to most people(s) three choices - Olympus E510, Canon XSi and Nikon D80. I went with E-510 right on the spot after looking at the images on the digital PC monitor in just 4 week end hunting. The other two contemplated a while and my friend went with Canon XSi and my cousin chose D80 as he wanted to use his old Nikon lenses and gears.

On a fine evening we got our stuffs ordered online. As soon we returned from work, we were excited to experiment our choices.

Right out of the box results: (No tweaking)
E-510 - Great Outdoor results with very good natural color processing well exposed. Indoor shots were good natural color tones with a bit dull and underexposed.
XSi - Great Outdoor and Indoor results with very little pink tinted color processing with a good exposure.
D80 - Great Outdoor results with little blue tinted color processing. Indoor results with very little blue tinted color processing with a good exposure.

You can see the pink and blue tint obvious on the skin tone and on the white base subjects. We actually compared the images captured by these three with what we saw with bare eyes. We all observed this very little tone changes when tried out at stores and agreed upon the myth that "Every brand has it's own way and nothing is perfect". But still it's too early to decide which one is best.

We tried it every evening as soon we come back and with little tweaking as suggested by the reviewers and professionals. In just 3 days - I made everyone to think that - I WON. Still those guys wanted to give a try because some times the results from Canon XSi and Nikon D80 will have the same color as E510 in long shots and when occasionally (say like one in 100 shots) E510 underexposes the skin tones will look greyish. We almost go as a group for all the functions/festivals and fill with flashes everywhere :)

After 3 months of coutinuous use at the same places, here is our findings:

Speed: XSi is better than E510 and D80. but thats for just 6-7 frequent shots. after that, the XSi will pop up with "BUSY" icon. It is famous and you can see the complaints in Amazon reviews. The other to will be steady through out the the session. no BUSY nothing.

Color Tone: E510 is more natural across the lighting conditions. Indoor shots need to have exposure compensation set to either +0.3 or +0.7

Indoor Photos: E510 is a bit dull and underexposed right out of the box but after a little tweaking it just blows the other two out of the window with very natural color tones and bright images. It actually chooses the right ISO required where as the Canon XSi always chooses ISO 400 when using flash I don't know why it is set like that.

Dynamic Range: Though the pro reviewers say, D80 is more dynamic we haven't came across a situation to prove it. Under most common outdoors shooting, we all three got almost identical resluts and we liked the E510 processing much better than the other two.

ISO:
upto ISO 400, E510 is noise free. It get's a slight noise pushing in at ISO 800 and at ISO 1600 noise is obvious. Canon XSi is noise free till ISO 1600. Nikon D80 is noise free till ISO 800 and at ISO 1600 it introduces a little noise. It is worth to be noted that we haven't seen a situation that we need to use more than ISO 400 under normal indoor/outdoor common user needs. We actually forced the camera to use ISO 800 and ISO 1600 just to see the results where the camera picked ISO 400 by it's own when you leave it to the camera choise in ISO. This is actually a dark night shot on the river bank pointing the camera at the lighted buildings on the other side of the river and the situation is really dark.


Auto Focus: E-510 locks on for sharp focus almost 99% of the time but hunts for focus at low light with too much flash strobes for 4-5 seconds drving you nuts. XSi is zippy but occasionally the focus is not properly locked. When you view on the camera display it looks fine but when blow up in the monitor, it's unfocused. Nikon D80 had the most mis focus. You can see these misfocus issues at both Amazon reviews and DPreview.

Image Stabilization: E510 wins hands down. I took tack sharp pictures using 70-300 lens zoomed all the way at 300mm with shutter going down till 1/30. XSi's lens based stabilization is not that effective when we used it with 50-200mm lens zoomed to 200mm. It was effective till 1/40. Nikon we haven't tried it as we don't have IS lens. Not to mention the hefty price my friend paid for the Canon 50-200 IS lens while I paid just $240 for the 70-300 lens as I had an effective IS built into my E510 body.

Fit and Feel: E510 wins again with more robust build quality. Nikon D80 is also built good but a bit bigger. XSi looks kind of plasticky and has an uncomfortable grip. E510 just lays in your hand so comfortable and is a joy to use.

Value for Money:
I paid $560 for the 2 kit lens. Sold my 40-150mm for $110 and bought the 70-300 for $240 making my kit to cost me $690. FL-36 flash costed me $150, totalled to $840.
XSi costed my friend $869 with 18-55mm (Now it is around $500-$600), 70-300mm IS lens for $510. With no flash his kit is now $1379.
Nikon D80 costed my cousin $910 with 18-135mm with no IS !!! He can't simply use his camera hand held as I am using it with my long zoom 300mm or as my friend using his XSi with his 200mm or in low light.
Now...you decide which one gives you more dollar for dollar...XSi with 70-300mm auto focus is faster than the E510 with 70-300 mm at the very long end of the zoom. XSi with 300mm zoomed couldn't get sharp results all the time, less than 250mm is ideal for hand held. E510 has effective IS and works all the way till 300mm handheld but had focus hunt when used in a slight shadow area.

Follow this link "http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/43/e510-sett.html" to tune up your E510 and enjoy the long journey of Digital photography. Good luck.

Verdict:
We also asked the rest of the people at home and our friends to see the pictures and pick which one looks better without telling them which one came from what camera. The end result is 80% of the images picked by the them who don't even know which camera produced it, picked E510's pictures.

We all three agreed that E510 is the best all around DSLR in it's category and we just pay the hyped price for the Canon and Nikon just for the label which produces image quality that is equal to inferior than the low priced, light weight E510. Look no further, go for this little gem and you will be more pleased than the Canon and Nikon users.

Summary: Great Camera for the money

Comment: I have a E410, E500 and now the E520 body. All of these are great cameras. The E520 has a very fast recycle rate on both the images and the flash. It is very easily used as point-and-shoot in auto mode and I can still get all of the effects that I could with a manual film camera. One point I will make very clear. If you buy this as a "kit" with lenses don't expect this performance. The lenses that come in most kits are cheap. Dont get me wrong, they work great in FULL SUN... ANYTHING other though you will likely have slow responses and blurry photos. Many times the camera just will not aquire. Buy good quality lenses and you will not be dissapointed!

Summary: great camera

Comment: I've never purchased anything but Olympus Cameras... I have three of them dating back to the 1980's. Every Camera has been an excellent camera as the E 520 has also has proven to be.

Summary: A superb entry level DSLR

Comment: I looked at Canon XSI/XTI and Nikon 60D and decided to go with Olympus. And I am very happy with my decision.

The body is light, the pictures are sharp. AF is very good. When I showed the pictures to my friends who owned Canon and Nikon, they kept asking me if I improved the pictures on photoshop or not. I told them no and they didn't believe me.

The battery lasted very long. I took hundreds of pictures so far in the last month and I have only recharged my camera once.

3.5 fps is pretty decent. The only minor complaint is that AF is a bit slow in low light situation, but it is no big deal for me.

Overall, this is the best entry level DSLR in the market.

Summary: My first dSLR, and it blew my socks off!

Comment: Yes, the E-520 is my first dSLR. It took me months to make the leap, during which I did A LOT of research, posted questions in forums, went everywhere my mouse would take me. Here were my reasons for choosing this camera:
1. Weight. I have back and shoulder problems, and lugging around a huge camera and heavy lenses was never an option.
2. Mirror-cleaning system. One of the issues that held me back for so long, as I'd been reading about the problems and annoyances caused by dust in mirrors (electronic devices are dust magnets!). But Olympus came up with a solution for this, and everybody said it was the best cleaning system in the market. I chose to believe it.
3. Camera resources. If you're willing to learn them, you'll become a better photographer, and that was my plan. I no longer wanted to let the camera do all the thinking. Although the E-520 still allows that (auto mode), I wanted more control and a better idea of why I was getting the results I was getting. Thus, I can set everything by hand if I want to. Or not, if I'm having a lazy day!
4. In-body image stabilization. Like any point & shoot, the E-520 body is stabilized, which helps reduce camera shake, especially when using those bigger lenses.
5. Lenses. As they say, Olympus has great "glass". Even the most humble and inexpensive Olympus lenses have a lot of quality. They will surely outlast any camera body, which is how it should be: the biggest investment are always the lenses. Furthermore, the peculiar sensor size adopted by the company (four thirds) makes for twice the reach with no gain in bulk. Thus, for instance, a 70-300 mm Olympus lens is, in fact, a 140-600 mm lens -- a huge zoom in a compact package, which is perfect for me since I do a lot of bird photography. And this takes me straight back to the weight and bulk in item #1.

I've had the E-520, plus the "kit"14-42 mm, the 70-300 mm and the 50 f/2 lenses for almost two months and I couldn't be happier. In terms of image quality, the differences between this camera and the superzoom cameras I owned previously (Panasonic FZ18, Canon S3 IS) are not only visible, they are incredible. I haven't had any problems with purple fringing, excessive noise, distortion, nothing.

It is easy and intuitive to navigate the camera menus and controls to do things the way I want. Oh, and dust? I haven't yet given it a thought: the Olympus cleaning system really works. Truth is, for me it is simply a joy to use this camera. Photography is fun now -- not frustration at seeing something and then having the images be a total letdown.

A bit of advice for newbies like myself: join forums, ask for advice, read the manuals and the literature out there (like Brian Peterson), take a lot of pictures then look them through to understand what you did right or wrong. It really helps the learning curve.