The E-510 won’t oust Canon and Nikon from the top slots, but it is a return to form for Olympus and offers great value when bought as a twin-lens kit

I’m regularly surprised by people who feel the need to buy one of the “main brand” Digital SLRs in preference to the Olympus EVOLT E-510 with image stabilisation, dust removal, a decent kit lens, and live view. The camera comes with features and modes to suit the beginner all to way up to professional photographers, and is currently the cheapest Digital SLR to feature Live View and Image Stabilisation. Photographers will be very happy with this camera. Highly Recommended!

Currently, competition in entry-level digital SLR cameras is intense. And while it may not have the most attractive price, the E-510 offers a number of features that should make it very attractive.

With a stunning feature set and great handling in a (slightly) beefier body than its E-410 predecessor, plus great image quality, the only thing left to want is a great price. Oh! Hang on; it has a great price too – in a variety of tasty-looking kits or body only.

The E-510 is a great all-around DSLR. It’s light, affordable, packed with features and options, and it will help you get great photos. I would definitely recommend it to someone who’s looking to purchase a DSLR and lens kit for well under $1,000.

So if portability is your prime concern and you’re buying a DSLR mainly for travel and holidays, go for the E-410. If however a greater range of photographic control appeals, then the Olympus E-510 will suit you better, and for the last reason alone it gets individual scores slightly higher than its pared-down but still impressive sibling.

The Olympus E-series continues to get better and better. The E-510 is a superb photographer’s camera, offering superb handling, outstanding performance, a huge degree of control and first rate picture quality, in a compact and robust package and at a price which comfortably beats most of the competition. It is without question one of the best semi-pro DSLRs currently available, and a genuine pleasure to use.

The E-510 is one of those cameras that becomes a lot better once you’ve learnt how to get the most out of it – you need to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

More versatile than the E-410 and a slightly better performer, the E-510’s image stabilisation system will greatly expand the range of shooting conditions in which you can use your camera.

But overall, especially considering the excellent pricing, extensive feature set, effective image stabilization and superb design/construction/handling, the E-510 is an impressive and hugely rewarding camera in use.

And though its multitude of features might make it a bit daunting to some, the E-510 is a solid, flexible camera that takes very good pictures under most conditions.

If features like live view, image stabilisation and dust reduction appeal to you, then the Olympus E-510 might be just what you’re looking for. While its pictures are a little on the soft side compared to competing models, they are perfectly adequate for most uses and the feature set is certainly enticing.

While many digital SLRs priced around £500 have severely limited features, Olympus’s E-510 bucks the trend.

While the E-510 can’t tempt us away from the Nikon D80 with its great kit lens, it can hold its own against the Sony Alpha 100 and Canon Eos 400D, although it’s a good deal pricier. If it were only cheaper, we’d like it a lot more.

With the Evolt E-510, you get a full-featured DSLR with more advanced features than just about any similarly priced camera.

The Olympus Evolt E-510 has quirky exposure and white-balance issues, but its Live View and Image Stabilization modes may make some photographers give this SLR a chance.