Although not without flaws, the Olympus E-510 and Olympus E-410 bring Olympus' DSLR cameras in line with the competition. While previous Olympus DSLR cameras featured noticeably more noise than other brands, the E-510 shows less image noise than its predecessors while the competition started showing a bit more noise and loss of details with the introduction of their 10 megapixels DSLR models. Still, the E-510 does have inherently more noise than the competition but leaves the trade-off between noise and details to the user. This allows excellent image quality up to ISO 800. At ISO 1600, details are either lost to noise or to noise-reduction.

 

The Olympus E-510 is a very feature-rich camera with effective stabilization and dust-reduction as well as great ergonomics and long battery-life. Only its 3-point auto focus system and viewfinder size are less than average in terms of specification. Nevertheless, the focusing system is fast and accurate.

 

The final recommendation is a difficult one. This is an excellent camera which can be seriously considered for those with an existing investment in Olympus lenses. However, there are great alternatives among the competition with better image quality at high-ISO and larger more comfortable viewfinders. The size advantage of the Four-Thirds system has not been realized with the E-510 since there are smaller DSLR offerings including the stabilized Pentax K100D and the non-stablized Canon Digital Rebel XTi. In terms of features, the closest match for the E-510 is the Sony Alpha A100. For a truly smaller DSLR, the Olympus E-410 can be considered instead, although it does not feature builtin stabilization and is not as easy to hold as the E-510.