Why isn't there much talk on the Olympus EVOLT E-510

When researching DSLR's recently the one that impressed me the most for
image quality and price was the Olympus EVOLT E-510. I don't see it getting
much love in here though. Why is that?

 

Read for yourself

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=oly_e510

 

And? All the opinions are positive. I'm asking why I don't see hardly any
posts about it in this group.

 

It is a good value for the money.

I think the reason the Olympus digital SLRs haven't sold well is because
of other issues, such as the lens situation. If you want a true
wide-angle lens for a 4:3 camera you're looking at a lot of money. The
Olympus 7-14mm lens, which gives you 14-28mm is nearly $1500. The Canon
EF-s 10-22mm lens which gives you 16-35mm is around $600 on sale. This
is an inherent problem of the 4:3 system which uses a very small sensor.

 

Coverage, for one.
The wider the angle, with older priven lens designs the more vignetting
will occur, so to achieve the same angle of view (ie: 35mm equivalent)
the wider the lens must be due to the 2x crop fator induced by the
smalleer semor which the FourThirds standard calls for.

What you seem to have been hoodwinked by is the (old?) Olympus
FourThirds advertising speil (attempting to justify their
all-retrocfocus range of lenses) that says that the older lenses for
other makers cannot be used with DSLR cameras.
Look at pbase.com and try and comprehend the vast number of images taken
with supposedly "unusable" (as per Olympus/FourThirds speil) lenses made
for 35mm slr cameras which are now being used with dslr cameras.

 

True. I am attracted to the Olympus SLRs because I want a small light
camera, and all other DSLRs are bigger and heavier than my 35mm SLR
despite using smaller sensors, a state of affairs which I consider
rather perverse. But there is not much point in getting an SLR unless
you can get a good set of lenses with it, and the Olympus wide-angle
lenses are far too expensive, and no-one else is making 4/3 lenses of
sufficiently wide angle. At the moment I'm just going to sit tight and
hope that either Olympus prices drop or other manufacturers start to
trim the fat from their cameras.

 

While all reports indicate that the Olympus 7-14 f4 is a great lens,
it's expensive. As it's a part of their "Super High Grade" line,
that's unlikely to change. There is also an 11-22mm f2.8-3.5, in the
High Grade (typically $700).

However, you may be intersted to see the "Olympus Lens Roadmap."
There is an "Ultra-wide zoom lens" in the "Standard" line planned
for 2008 release. If the scales can be trusted [*], it looks like
it'll be an 8-16mm lens, but there's been no additional detail
published about it. The other lenses in that range seem to cost
between $200-400 with most of them on the lower end, so that bodes
well for an inexpensive ultra-wide for 4/3rds cameras.

http://www.olympus-esystem.com/dea/products/lens/pdf/zuiko_lens_eng.pdf

-alan

[*] Most of the rest of the ranges are accurately scaled, except for
the 14-42 lens. However, the 14-42 replaced a 14-45 lens, and it
looks like they just changed the 45 to a 42 and left the rest of that
lens's arrow the same.

 

I never said it cost more to manufacture them, just that they are very
expensive. However it's always been the case that the wider the wide end
of an ultra-zoom, the more expensive so it probably does cost more to
manufacture them. In any case the manufacturing cost is irrelevant, it's
the retail cost that matters to the camera purchaser. Someone that looks
at the big picture (no pun intended) prior to committing to a specific
manufacturer or lens mount is unlikely to choose an Olympus digital SLR.
It's not only the lens situation, but the situation with other
accessories as well.

 

: On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:14:37 -0700, just bob wrote:
:
:
: >
: > Read for yourself
: >
: > http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/read_opinions.asp?prodkey=oly_e510
:
: And? All the opinions are positive. I'm asking why I don't see hardly any
: posts about it in this group.

The short answer is "because almost everybody in the group has either Canons
or Nikons". Most of us don't know enough about the E510 to say anything
sensible about it.

Bob

 

:
: > Juarez wrote:
: >> When researching DSLR's recently the one that impressed me the most
: >> for image quality and price was the Olympus EVOLT E-510. I don't see
: >> it getting much love in here though. Why is that?
: >
: > I think the reason the Olympus digital SLRs haven't sold well is
: > because of other issues, such as the lens situation. If you want a true
: > wide-angle lens for a 4:3 camera you're looking at a lot of money.
:
: True. I am attracted to the Olympus SLRs because I want a small light
: camera, and all other DSLRs are bigger and heavier than my 35mm SLR
: despite using smaller sensors, a state of affairs which I consider
: rather perverse. ...

Not so perverse if you take into account that a valid size and weight
comparison between the two requires that the film SLR be equipped with a motor
drive and the battery necessary to power it.

Bob

 

The larger back-focus of the larger sensor DSLR cameras means that the
light rays are as close to the "telecentric" ideal that Olympus and the
rest of the FourThirds cabal keep chanting about as to make a special
case for the FourThirds system somewhat moot.
The only 35mm based digital camera which should have real problems is
the Leica M8, due to the closeness of the rear lens element of the
rangefinder lenses to the sensor plane, and this has been dealt with by
incorporating microlenses into the surface of the sensor to eliminate
the "vignetting problem" which the FourThirds cabal sems to promote as
the "fatal flaw" for existing interchangable lens digital cameras (other
than the FourThirds system cameras, of course).
It obviously isn't true, as there are literally millions of photos
online which do not suffer from this mythical ailment by which
(originally) Olympus sold the FourThirds system to the world with.

 

And the Canon 10-22 has the optical quality of their L series lenses.

The manufacturing cost of the 7-14 is of little interest to the retail
customer. All that matters is what lenses of equivalent range and
optical quality sell for for other lens mounts.

Olympus needs to come out with mid-range ultra-wide-angle zoom lens. Not
a low end $300 lens, and not necessarily 7-14mm, but maybe 8-16mm, in
their "high-grade" segment. Canon has three segments like Olympus, and
the 10-22 is in the mid-range. A junky ultra-wide angle zoom is not of
much interest to Canon or Nikon buyers, and I doubt if it will interest
Olympus buyers either.

 

Note that the Canon EOS-400D (XTi) is smaller than the E-510 (48 cubic
inches versus 52 cubic inches) though the Canon does weigh a bit more
(18 ounces versus 16.6 ounces).

It's difficult to compare lenses, as the different companies often don't
have similar quality lenses in each zoom range, but here's a comparison
that is good for the wide angle, and not so proper for the telephoto in
terms of optical quality:

The EF-s 10-22 lens is 13.6 ounces and is 3.3 x 3.5, the 7-14mm Olympus
lens weighs 27.85 ounces and is 3.4" D x 4.7" L.

The Canon EF 70-300mm (112-480) f/4-5.6 IS lens is 7.8" x 4.7" inches
and weighs 1.4 pounds, while the 50-200mm (100-400) Zuiko Digital
f/2.8-3.5 ED is 9.1" L x 4.7"D inches ; 4.2 pounds.

So don't assume that the other manufacturers don't make stuff as small
and light as Olympus!

 

No, the E510 and the 400D are both entry level models, so the comparison
is fair. IS in the lens is far, far, better than IS in the body, and
since you really only need one or two lenses with IS, the difference in
cost is not all that much.

 

'far, far, better' ? what tests show this?

at longer focal lengths, in-lens is better, but in-camera is still
helpful. at shorter focal lengths, the difference is negligible, if
there is any difference at all. in fact, having a stabilized sensor
and a high quality fixed focal length wide-angle lens is arguably
better than a stabilized zoom that covers the wide-angle lengths.

and who says only one or two lenses with stabilization is needed?

where do you come up with this crap?

 

You can learn more about it at
"http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-on-in-camera-vs-in-lens-image.html"

In-Lens Systems
---------------
Advantages
1. More effective with longer lenses
2. You don't pay for it except with the lenses you need it for
3. You see the stabilization effects through the viewfinder

Disadvantages
-------------
1. More expensive, especially if you want the feature in more than one lens
2. Not available with all lenses

In-Body Systems
---------------
Advantages
1. Works with every lens you mount to the body, and may be the only
option for many shorter and faster lenses
2. Less expensive, especially if you want the feature with more than one
lens

Disadvantages

 

and where exactly does that say that in-lens is 'far, far, better' ???

it looks like that article said basically the same thing i did.
in-lens is better for longer lenses and in-camera is better for shorter
lenses.

 

Probably because most of the posters here seem to have canon and nikon on
the brain and can't see anything else.

 

I was looking at the E410 which is lighter (375g), I wouldn't want anything
heavier. Equipped with the 11-22mm zoom it would be about the same total
weight and bulk as my old Pentax MX with 20mm & 35mm lenses. At present
there seems to be no DSLR that beats a 35mm on size and weight once you add
the lenses in.

What I'd like is something like the Ricoh GX100 (which weighs only 250g c/w
24-72mm zoom) only with a bigger sensor and interchangeable lenses. An SLR
kit with 2-3 lenses which is about 1kg lighter than my 35mm one, that's
what I'm looking for, but only Olympus seems to be doing anything in that
direction and even they haven't done much.

 

You don't have to like it, but perhaps a history lesson is in order?
A good (but sad) reason for that could be that Olympus (seen as the
"flag bearer" for FourThird) abandonned their OM lensmount in 1988 with
the market failure of their second only AF OM model (OM-101) and went to
the ZLR camera format (the IZM 300, IZM 400, IZM 200 and L-1).
This (unfortunately) left any-one using the great Olympus Zuiko lenses
stuck with using increasingly aged SLR camera bodies (and no new
lenses!) which were no longer supported and completely betrayed by the
total discarding of the OM design when Olympus adopted the FourThirds
system as their first DSLR camera (the E-1), in 2003.
A fifteen year wait between SLR bodies, only to find the new DSLR won't
take the old lenses must be taken into account when wondering about
Olympus not "getting much love" around here.
The marketing hype for 4/3 "telecentric" lenses really doesn't help much
either.
Nikon, Canon, Sigma and Pentax all kept and built on the loyalty of
their SLR camera using customers by keeping the same lensmount design on
their DSLR cameras as on their film SLR cameras.