Olympus E-420 Body

If you want an entry level DSLR with excellent customization settings or prepackaged point and shoot settings in a small light body and a reasonable price, this is it. If you want to customize be prepared to read and experiment as there are a lot of options that require using a multi-level menu system; a small price to pay for the features you get. The body will require reasonable care when using since its durability is typical of most non-professional bodies. Using the vivid color setting when shooting scenery will yield some impressive photos with rich blue skies and vibrant green grass.

The view finder is a little on the small side for a DSLR but better than most point & shoots. Shooting in live mode with 11 point balanced focus on doesn’t work well due to the slow update of the view screen. I would use these features only if shooting still subjects from a tripod. The large view screen is easier to read in bright sunlight than any of the point & shoots I have used. The standard Zukio 14-42mm zoom lens is OK for an entry level lens but its f 3.5 aperture is not very slow so don’t plan on shooting in low light without additional lighting or flash. Once I bought an adapter for my old 50mm f1.8 Manual Zies lens you could see a drastic improvement in the quality of light and color. Using this lens with the 4/3 system yields an effective 100mm which is perfect for portrait and glamour shots. There are times when using my 60-300mm (effective 600mm) telephoto lens that it might have been nice to have the image stabilization. If your plan is to shoot a lot with a long telephoto lens you might want the E-520. My intended use is mostly outdoor glamour/portrait and some macro so stabilization isn’t as important for me.

Overall I have been pleased with the functionality of the camera. When combining the body with some of my older quality lenses its capabilities really shine through. I have been very please with the overall quality of the photos that are output. It‘s no D5 or E3, but for the money it appears to have been an excellent choice. If you have more money to spend would still recommend this body; use the extra money on a good lens. I can see the image quality produced by this body capable of handling lenses in the $2-5,000 range just fine.

Awesome product, great value for the money! Panorama (spanning) capability.

Suggestion: Get spare battery, buy a good memory card card converter (such as SDHC-high-speed to CF-II) to free yourself from memory card choice, and get xD Picture Card memory card to fully utilize its potential.

One thing that does not exist in most low entry camera of its kind is the built in Panorama function which is used to take adjacent images (up to 10 shots) and stiches them together into a long picture. But with prerequisite availability of an xD Picture Card in the camera.

This is one of the easiest to adjust manually of all the entry level dSLR I have ever used especially from its live view. It is almost a breeze to adjust how much light exposure I would have along with determining how much the flash light power would affect the exposure. All that left is how steady our hand holding the camera.

Adjust once, use the live view to see how the result would be, and then switch back to the view finder to conserve battery--as long as the environment lights not change so much.

Pros: Panorama (spanning) shooting with optional xD Picture card. Live view helps so much in manual adjustment of the camera. Its light sensitivity adjustment is the easiest among entry level dSLR with the help of live view. Abundance choice of auto shoot. Fast image saved/processing. Generally produces soft tone image.

Cons: Live view eats battery faster than any other dSLR. Generally produces soft tone image. Too simple explanation of the adjustment menu. Menu is a bit confusing to adjust. Memory card choice is not so popular (xD Picture Card and/or Compact Flash (CF) memory card).

Great camera for starting out and great for the money!

This is a great starter camera for those interested in photography! There are many many menu features that take sometime to learn but once you do it's smooth sailing! I recommended this camera to anyone that wants to start photography and making sure they are serious they want to do it! It is light weight perfect size and great for the money!!