• Introduction
• Features and specifications
  • Body
  • Lenses
  • Image sensor
  • Image processing
  • File format and compression
  • Viewing system
  • Storage
  • Shutter
  • Drive modes
  • Exposure control
  • Focusing
  • Flash
  • Power
  • LCD monitor

• Controls
  • Mode dial
  • Direct buttons and control wheel
  • Switch and toggle buttons
  • Menu system
  • Control Panel
• Customization
• Image quality
• Documentation
• Software
• Conclusion

The picture at the left shows the inner frame construction: certainly, not a job like in heavy-duty, professional cameras, weighing twice as much, but better than nothing: it improves the dimensional rigidity of the body, without significantly adding to camera's weight.

The rubberized grip surface does not extend on the flat part of the body front; there is also no rubberized thumb patch in the back; two niceties present on the older model. Another sign of economizing, but, again, still feels better than in other models in this price range, and not only.

The grip is good, and the camera is quite pleasant in touch. Even if an economy job, a good one.

The E-500 is just 4.5 mm wider and 1.5 mm taller than the Pentax *ist DS2, or 1 mm narrower and 2 mm taller than the Minolta (excuse me, Konica Minolta) Maxxum 5D. Most importantly, shrinking the width and removing the left-hand body protrusion improved the camera balance; it feels better in hand. Together with the bundled 14-45 mm zoom the camera is a joy to handle; better than I expected.

The Canon 350D and Nikon D50 tip the scales at 540 g, Minolta 5D at 590 g, and Pentax *ist DS — 505 g (no batteries or memory cards included in these numbers).

Index

Lenses

The premium glass from Olympus is offered at premium prices (but try to find a 9.5 mm rectilinear wide angle zoom for any brand with an APS-sized sensor, at any price, to match the Olympus 7-14 mm zoom). Still, even budget and mid-line Olympus lenses offer very solid performance at prices within the means of an average amateur.

With the sensor being approximately half linear size of the 35-mm frame, one could expect the mount also to be half as large; that would offer a considerable size advantage to camera bodies and lenses. The "digital" lenses, however, cannot be designed just by reducing "film" ones proportionally to the sensor size: once again, the incident light angle requirement comes into play. It turns out that a 14-45 mm Four Thirds zoom, equivalent to a 28-90 mm zoom on a 35-mm film camera, will be similar in size in weight to the latter, not smaller at all. The "digital" lenses begin getting smaller than their "film" equivalents only at longer focal lengths.

The zoom control is mechanical, and this is good: much more precise than any electronic adjustment by controls placed on camera's body or even by a "fly by wire" lens ring. The latter solution is, however, used for focusing (at least in the bundled zooms), and I'm not too happy with it, preferring manual focus to be mechanically driven.

The third option (17.5-45 mm) seems less attractive, with the zoom starting only at 35 mm EFL (remember the factor of two!), but that lens weighs only 220 g and its length is 70 mm, which may make it a great hiking companion. Most probably this lens will not be sold separately, only as a part of a kit on some markets.

Both lenses of the two-lens kit have been available since the introduction of the E-300, and both turned out to be solid performers: obviously, Olympus chose to downgrade rather the specifications than the optical quality. While I consider the 14-54, F/2.8-3.5 zoom to be a more desirable choice, that lens alone costs $450 (in the U.S.).

I've used the 14-45 mm zoom for almost a year now and I like it. It shows some vignetting at wide angle when wide open, but at F/5.6 this goes away and the sharpness is also good corner-to-corner, see my E-300 samples. The 40-150 mm lens is even better.

Considering that the street price of the E-500 body is $700 and the kits are priced at $800 and $900, you can get each lens at just $100, far less than if bought separately. A very attractive pricing, indeed.

Index

Image sensor

No amount of in-camera image processing will replace a better sensor, although some manufacturers seem to think differently. I'm glad Olympus decided to retain the premium Kodak chip in this camera; this means that the image quality should be at least as good as that from the E-300. If you are interested in details, refer to the specs sheet (with a link to a PDF document); an interesting and educational discussion of the KAF-8300CE has been also provided by Jason Busch at digitaldingus.com, especially if you have some background in sciences.

Regarding the comparison with APS-sized sensors in most non-pro SLRs on the market, both are almost the same. Let me do the numbers: a typical APS-sized sensor (Canon 20D) is 22.2×14.8 mm. Because of the 3:2 proportions, a part of the longer dimension is wasted; the shorter one is what really counts if you print your images in any standard format besides the drugstore 4×6" (10×15 cm) size. This means that the effective linear sensor size in Four Thirds standard is 88% (divide 13 by 14.8) of that in the APS-sized breed.

Anyway, this is plenty. While I consider 5 MP sufficient for good 30×40 cm (12×16") prints, with the E-300 I've learned to appreciate the 60% larger pixel count which allows me for quite significant cropping, if needed, as long as the lens delivers enough detail (and usually it does).

Two interesting pieces of trivia:

• In the Sixties, some Japanese camera makers, including Nikon, tried to introduce a 24×32 frame format, more pleasing to the eye, in 35-mm film cameras. This was never accepted, especially outside of Japan, perhaps due to unwillingness by photofinishers to process another format. These are the same guys who stubbornly refuse to offer 4:3 prints from the 95% of digital cameras being sold, using 4:3 image proportions.
• Around the same time, an interesting gadget was sold in the U.S., allowing to mask out the outer edges of the 24×36 mm SLR viewing screen to the 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio, to help with more precise composing of pictures to be printed (Kenneth S. Tydings, Advanced Exakta-Exa Guide 1960). I wonder if someone will come up with the same ides for present-day digital SLRs stubbornly sticking to the 3:2 proportions.

Well, maybe this was not directly related to the E-500, but I thought you might find this entertaining.

Still no JPEG 2000 support? Which of the camera makers will have the guts to bury the 20+ years old JPEG, or at least offer JPEG 2000 as an option? This format offers better compression at the same image quality, or better quality at the same compression, and is supported by all graphic applications of the last few years.

As a new feature in the E-500, the ISO settings above 400 can be available with dynamic noise filtering turned on or off. The filtering (which is different than the low-signal, static noise reduction by dark frame subtraction) should help in reducing the visible noise at the expense of losing some detail — similar to the "Saran wrap" look in pictures from cameras applying the noise filter to work around noisier sensors.

There are two other new options related to the ISO settings:

• The step in which ISO value is manually adjusted can be selected as 1 EV (100, 200, 400...) or 1/3 EV (100, 125, 160...). I don't think this is really important.
• You can set the upper limit to which the autoexposure logic will raise ISO if needed (this happens with flash only). Nice.

October 2006: The new Leica M8 is the first model getting rid of the low-pass filter, so that resolution is not affected; the Moirè effect is addressed in the software which converts raw images into RGB.

The infrared-blocking filter protects the sensor from capturing the IR light which negatively affects the image, especially color balance. This feature is also common.

Both filters are placed just in front of the image sensor, and in some cameras they are combined into one. The Olympus drawing shown here suggests that in the E-500 they are implemented separately (my guess is that the anti-IR filter is shown in darker green), with the dust barrier (marked as SSWF, pink) being a separate layer.

This is, however, not the whole truth. The first batches of E-500 still used the old anti-IR filter; the new one appeared only after a few weeks, maybe months. Details are discussed in a separate article on shooting IR with E-500; here are just the basic facts:

• My first IR tests (October, 2005) have shown the E-500 to be as sensitive to infrared as the E-300; shooting with the R-72 IR filter required a 150× increase in exposure (7.3 EV steps).
• In March of 2006 my camera was sent to Olympus for a shutter repair. When it came back, the IR sensitivity turned out to be much lower, with exposure ratio of 1300× (10.3 EV). The only possible explanation is that the whole assembly was replaced, including the filter.

This is how this works in theory, and when I started using E-System cameras, sharing this feature, I had some doubts how effective the system may be. After a year with the E-300 I can say that it really seems to work: my monthly check shows no traces of sensor dust, and I am changing lenses quite a lot.

Dust is a major issue in interchangeable-lens SLRs; every time you remove the lens, some particles may settle on the sensor (or rather the internal filter in front of it), resulting in dark specks in subsequently taken pictures. This is best visible in shots of smooth, uniform areas, like a blue, clear sky. The specks will be fuzzy, as the dust particles are not directly on top of the sensor but somewhat ahead of it; still, the effect is quite clear.

There is a booming, home-grown industry of tools for removing the dust from the front of the sensor: brushes, swabs, pads, tissues, liquids, and prayer beads; sometimes just repackaged or re-branded cosmetic accessories sold at ten times original price; there are also whole schools supporting one or another approach to performing this operation. I'm glad I don't have to do it.

October 2006: Looks like manufacturers who never bothered to mention the dust problem are now, after three years, jumping on the bandwagon. The new Canon 400D (a.k.a. XTi), Sony A100, and Pentax K10D are using a dust removal system similar to that in Olympus cameras.

Index

Image processing

The Auto WB should work reasonably well if your picture contains a clear white area. Otherwise you're risking that the camera's decision will be less than optimal; you may also lose color consistency between consequent frames: a series of slightly different pictures differing just a little in what the frame contains may have quite different white balance settings, definitely not nice. This is not something particular to a given camera of maker, but a fact of life.

To give you some say in WB of your pictures, Olympus offers a number of presets, marking each with both a mnemonic icon and the color temperature value in degrees Kelvin:

• Three daylight settings: sunny (5300K), cloudy (6000K), open shade (7500K);
• One incandescent setting (3000K);
• Three fluorescent settings (4000K, 4500K, 6600K);

In addition, there is one user-defined (custom) setting, to which you can assign any color temperature value to be later recalled quickly.

Usually the most precise way to set the white balance is to do it by reference: pointing the camera at a white or light-gray area, holding down the [Reference WB] button at top right, and pressing the shutter release. The camera takes a picture, and analyzes it without saving to memory card; the setting is then stored and can be recalled at will until it is changed.

This is one of the first features I checked on the E-500, and it seems to work very well, as good as on the E-300. The user interface has been, however, improved.

Note: The white balance settings are applied when the image is being converted from the raw data into an RGB (i.e., JPEG or TIFF) format; therefore any WB settings and adjustments do not affect images saved in the raw format (ORF). The settings, however, are stored in the ORF file header, and can be applied (or changed) when the image conversion is done on your computer.

A pair of adjustment values can be assigned independently to each of the presets, as well as to auto setting, and to the reference WB; in the last case the same correction will be retained even after you take another reading. This makes sense; for example, you may want to keep your open shade setting a little colder, and move any reference-metered ones towards red. The assigned custom setting, however, cannot be adjusted. You can also apply or cancel the WB adjustment to all settings in a single operation.

As much as I appreciate the creative freedom this feature offers, I haven't met anyone yet who would use it. I guess the most common use may be to tweak the adjustments to your liking in general, and leave them there.

Again, I do not see much use for this feature, being able to do the same in postprocessing, especially if the image is saved in the raw format.

This works quite well, as the low-light noise is, indeed, mostly static, i.e., the sensor response at a given light level varies from one pixel (or rather photosite) to another, while remaining approximately the same for a given pixel from one frame to another. (You may want to see my noise article for an introduction to this subject.)

The random noise (unpredictable differences in light response of the same pixel) happens, with differing magnitude, at all light levels, and all camera makers apply some filtering to smooth it out. Smoothing means loss of image detail, but smart algorithms make the latter less painful, detecting the detail patterns and applying the smoothing so that these patterns are not affected (for example, along, not across a strand of hair). This is, however, quite tricky, and Olympus approaches the problem in a conservative manner, with as little noise filtering as they deem necessary — and I agree with that, preferring some graininess to a Saran Wrap look.

At ISO settings above 400, the E-500 gives you a choice between less and more aggressive dynamic noise reduction. These settings can be disabled at all, or enabled with or without the aggressive filtering on.

This is quite annoying, unfortunately following a pattern: the engineers agonize about some solutions and decisions, and then the publication department decides we are not worthy to know anything about them. Let me quote the whole extent of the manual text regarding these settings:

[Vivid] Produces vivid tones.
[Natural] Produces neutral colors.
[Muted] Produces flat tone.

Thank you, Olympus, we wouldn't ever be able to figure this much out by ourselves, and we would be never capable of understanding any more meaningful explanations.

The two other Picture Modes are monochrome, or monotone (which means "having a single color" in my poor immigrant's English, therefore the naming is a bit misleading). The "Monotone" mode can be tinted blue, purple or green, and both can emulate filters used in B&W photography (yellow, orange, or red).

I consider the monochrome modes to be of marginal usability. Besides, applying a "filter" at the image conversion stage is not quite the same as putting a color filter in front of the lens, for a number of reasons.

The first three (color) modes can come quite handy, though — especially after some experimentation, as the sharpness, contrast, saturation, and gradation adjustments (see the next section) can be set and will be memorized independently for each of them (as well as for both mono modes). Once you do that, you will have a number of easily accessible presets, not unlike switching between different kinds of color slide film: think Velvia versus Ektachrome (see my E-500 customization article).

For many users, however (including myself), JPEG files are good enough, therefore these settings are meaningful.

• Sharpness can be adjusted within ±2 steps, whatever a "step" is. This is a contour enhancement process and, obviously, it will not restore any detail lost due to unsharp image or camera shake. In many cameras the default setting is too aggressive, being more pleasing at the first glance, but creating artifacts quite annoying at a closer look. I usually keep my sharpness at -2, applying the exact amount of sharpening (and the exact kind of it) in the postprocessing stage: once you butcher the image with excessive in-camera sharpening, the harm cannot be undone.
• Contrast (±2 steps) is often confused with sharpness, and the mass market loves contrasty images with details lost in shadows and highlights. Most of the time I keep the contrast setting at -1, increasing it only as needed after stretching the tonal range in postprocessing.
• Color saturation (shown as "RGB", ±2 steps) is also easy to overshoot. The default (zero) setting is close to my liking for most uses; on some Olympus cameras I've been using +1, but not on the E-300.
• Gradation has three settings: Normal, High Key, and Low Key. This feature was also present on the E-300, and I never took it off Normal, preferring instead to raise or lower the middle part of the tonal curve as needed in postprocessing.

As I mentioned before, these adjustments are set and memorized independently for each of the Picture Modes discussed above.

The computer chip built into every Four Thirds lens transfers the information about the magnitude of the effect at the current focal length and aperture to the camera, which then may compensate for it during raw-to-RGB conversion. (This means that images stored as raw files will not be affected, although they carry the information to be used in postprocessing, if so chosen.)

The in-camera fall-off correction, activated as an option named "Shading Compensation" from the menu, works nicely and transparently in the E-500. The bundled 14-45 mm ZD lens, indeed, exhibits slight fall-off at the short end when fully open, so the correction comes in handy.

If you use the Olympus Master (or Olympus Studio) software in postprocessing, you may postpone this step; it can be applied to both raw and JPEG files.

Better image editing programs offer a similar feature, but it does not get the lens information; you have to adjust the correction by hand, or use a third-party plugin for a given lens profile; less convenient and more expensive.

The lens distortion, also usually most visible at wider angles, can be corrected in a similar way, but in postprocessing only. It also uses the data received from the lens, and can be applied to raw or JPEG files.

I consider these not much more than trinkets; all can be performed more precisely in postprocessing, and it is quite difficult to judge the results on camera's monitor, even if it is as nice as that on the E-500.

While writing this review I wanted, with the help of my wife, to check how the red eye fix works. After half an hour of trying we had to give up: using the built-in flash we were not able to get a single case of red eye in the pictures we took of each other. Only after a few weeks I was lucky enough to see the effect in a family snapshot; as shown here, the red eye fix seems to really work.

Rotation (lossless, probably just by changing the orientation tag inside the file) and size reduction (rescaling to fewer pixels) are also available in case you are one of three people in your country who do not use a computer for postprocessing.

Index

File format and compression

Anyway, many refer to raw files as "digital negatives", and this is right: any information lost in the conversion to RGB cannot be later restored, so if you are really picky about this, you want to store raw images. This however, adds an extra step of converting them to RGB in postprocessing. (See my Raw Image Format article if you need to know more on the subject.)

For most practical purposes (including all I do), JPEG files are just fine. They use compression in which some image detail is always lost, and some compression artifacts introduced. These effects can be minimized by using lower compression ratio (also referred to as higher quality).

I don't see a real need to use the TIFF format. It is uncompressed RGB, and the files are quite huge; usually I'm not able to distinguish images saved as TIFFs from 1:2.7 or 1:4 JPEGs, even at close scrutiny.

Olympus uses lower compressions than most manufacturers, and this is a good thing. The choice on the E-500 includes 1:2.7, 1:4, 1:8, and 1:12 (the last one in new in this camera).

The 1:2.7 (best quality) compression is practically lossless, better than most of us actually need, but it produces largest files. With my other cameras I was usually switching between 1:4 and 1:8, finding the latter OK for most uses. The 1:12 setting can be resorted to when you want to save card space, but be prepared for your images to degrade in quality; check beforehand if this ratio meets your needs.

The JPEG file size (and actual compression ratio) will vary from image to image; still, the Olympus numbers seem to be rather inconsistent; for example, a 1:4 compression should result in 22.9/4 = 5.7 MB plus the overhead, not 4.5 MB. Yes, I know that a mean of reciprocals is not equal to a reciprocal of mean value, but the discrepancy seems to be too large anyway. This is, however, nitpicking, as the issue is of no practical importance.

I am somewhat puzzled with the 3200×2400 size. It is just 2% smaller than the native size, so why bother? If there is some reason behind this (which is possible), it remains well-hidden.

• SHQ: native size, hardwired 1:2.7 compression;
• HQ: native size, compression preset to 1:4, 1:8, or 1:12
• SQ: any size listed above (except native), any compression.

I'm not very fond of this indirect setting system (actually, you may set the "Standard" quality to be better than "High"), and the large number of reduced sizes serves no real purpose. A simple, direct system would be better, I think.

Index

Storage

Anyway, Compact Flash is the most common standard for storage cards and will probably remain so for the predictable future; the CF cards also improve from year to year faster than any other medium. The xD-Picture is a proprietary format, supported only by Olympus and Fuji; physically much smaller than CF, and currently available up to 2 GB.

Unfortunately, xD cards are significantly slower than most present-day CF ones; the initial expectations raised by the new standard did not materialize. Even the new "H" ("high speed") type, does not stand up to a good, modern CF card, with about half the speed of a SanDisk Extreme III. Still, my recommendation would be to put both types of card into the available slots.

For more on this see my card-writing speed article.

Anyway, I'm slightly disappointed about this; some of the new, less expensive cameras from Olympus use the High Speed interface.

Copying 207 MB of files from the E-500 to my computer via the USB interface took 280 seconds; this gives the average transfer speed of 0.74 MB/s, or about 50% of the nominal USB 1.1 transfer rate of 1.5 MB/s. These numbers show that even the USB 1.1 speed is not fully used. Quite possibly, the camera itself, not the USB interface, is a bottleneck in the process.

Index

Viewing system

The circle is not very useful, as it means nothing: the center-weighted pattern does not have a clear borderline, and Olympus provides no data about what percentage of sensitivity is concentrated within what radius. Actually, the circle is not even mentioned in the manual.

I don't consider this a real disadvantage; looks like Olympus recognized the marginal usefulness of DOF on small-finder cameras and made it accessible only for those who are desperate enough. On the other hand, all reviewers will check the DOF box on their specs sheets, and everybody is happy. Me too.

I consider this one of the three major flaws of this camera (the other ones are the absence of a wired remote socket, and being unable to use the built-in flash together with a hot-shoe-mounted one).

Digital camera makers use a quite misleading way to show the finder magnification. Most film SLRs have values of 80-100% at F=50 mm; specifications for digital SLRs look quite close (like the 90% above), unless we take into account that the actual image angle differs: 50 mm on a Four Thirds camera is equivalent to 100 mm on a 35-mm model. Therefore digital camera makers should rather quote values at the same equivalent, not actual focal length. In case of the E-500, this would be F=25 mm, resulting in a magnification of 45%, and this is the smallest value I've seen to date in any SLR, digital or film.

For comparison, the Nikon D70 has a magnification of 75% at F=50 mm. To make this value comparable against a film SLR, we would have to divide it by 1.5 (the focal length equivalence ratio), resulting in a magnification of 50%, the same as in the E-300 and higher than in the E-500. Until the camera manufacturers start publishing numbers which can be directly compared against each other, you will have to divide each quoted magnification value by the lens equivalence ratio.

The good news for E-300 users is that both EP-5 and EP-6 will also fit that camera.

Now the bad news: the eyepiece cover (a must when shooting from a tripod, without your eye at the finder) is the same flimsy and easy to lose piece of plastic as in the E-300. At least the new eyepiece is easier to remove and re-install when you are using the cover, some consolation.

Olympus also offers another eyecup, ME-1, with a built-in 1.2× magnifier. The piece uses two glass elements, which means it is achromatic, and it works as advertised, although eyeglass-wearers may have problems seeing the full finder area, including the data display.

Index

Shutter

The top shutter speed is limited by two factors: the speed with which shutter curtains move along their path (this speed does not depend on the setting), and the width of the slit, i.e., the distance at which the second, closing curtain follows the first, opening one. This width has to be precisely as needed, therefore narrow ones are more difficult to achieve.

My rough calculations show that the slit width in the E-500 is about 0.6 mm, the same as in the E-300.

The longest exposure times are available only in the manual exposure mode; in others, obviously, they are limited by the metering range, see below.

Index

Drive modes

When saving images in full-size, 1:8 or 1:12 JPEG format, the image conversion and writing speed is high enough to keep up with the 2.5 fps rate, so that sequences are limited in length only by card capacity.

When saving images as ORF or TIFF files, or JPEGs at 1:2,7and 1:4, the buffer gets full after four frames, so this is the maximum sequence length, after which you must wait until the buffer empties, at least partially (yes, you can resume shooting while the buffer is still being cleared).

These numbers are applicable to the Single AF mode, where the focusing is done only at the first frame. In Continuous AF the rate drops down to 2 fps or below (I shot 20 frames of a static object, with the time stamp difference of just 10 seconds between the first and the last one), as the camera focuses (pretty fast!) before each frame. The exact rate may depend on the AF speed.

The sequence speeds are what I would expect from a camera in this class: faster rates do not come free in terms of production costs or oher caveats. I am also not disappointed with the limit continuous shooting imposes on compression: sequence shooting is used for moving objects, and then I have other worries (framing, focusing accuracy, camera shake) than compression quality; the latter is not apt to become the bottleneck.

If you really insist on lower compression rates and unlimited sequences, you may set the SQ to 5 MP (2560×1920) and 1:4; at these settings the camera will keep up with the 2.5 fps rate.

When comparing the sequence speed and length of the E-500 against other cameras, one should take into account that what may be designated as "Fine" setting on one camera may actually be closer to the E-500 1:8 setting than to 1:4; the image pixel dimensions should be also considered.

I wish Olympus triggered the mirror action before, not after the self-timer delay. This would be functionally equivalent to the mirror lock feature, at the same time reducing the number of settings (one sub-menu less) and making the mirror lock directly accessible via the drive button.

Using a wireless IR remote instead is not quite the same; less convenient and less reliable, as the corresponding sensor is placed at the front of the camera. Another not-so-good news: Olympus does not include the infrared RM-1 with the E-500; now you have to spend $30 or so for a simple gadget like this.

On the bright side, you may have an IR remote from another Olympus camera; both the RM-1 and RM-2 (simpler, one button only) will work. In the former case, the remote zoom buttons, no longer working with the mechanical zoom on the E-500, have been assigned new functions: one opens and another closes the shutter in the bulb exposure mode.

Remote operation of the camera via USB using the Olympus Studio program allows you to access all settings (except for zoom), trigger the camera, and save images to the computer. This may be useful in stationary (mostly studio) setups, but I doubt if many users will the an advantage of this option.

Index

Exposure control

The metering system has been completely re-designed in the E-500, a major change from the E-1 and E-300. While the former used two (maybe three?) sensors measuring light at various image areas, the new system uses 49 separate, tightly-defined, readings. This is a more modern system and, in theory at least, it should provide the logic circuitry with more information about brightness distribution over the frame, thus allowing for better protection against detail loss in overexposed areas.

In practical use, however, I found the older system to work well enough, and its simplicity also has some advantages. My experience with the E-500 shows that it still makes sense to use some exposure compensation, depending on the scene being photographed, I failed to see any significant advantages to the new metering matrix (although, based on general considerations, there must be some).

The pattern metering uses that logic, determining the exposure at which the brightness range of the captured scene will fit best into the sensor's dynamic range. The major idea behind this solution, and similar ones by other makers is "Trust us". Fine, usually it works OK, but for most brightly-lit, high contrast scenes I still like to apply an exposure compensation of -0.3 or -0.7 EV to protect the highlights, and this also seems to work fine with the E-300, too. A literate photographer will usually get better results than a few hundred bytes of code in the firmware.

The ESP metering mode has two flavors: in addition to the regular one, the "ESP+AF" regimen modifies the metering algorithm by putting emphasis on the area used to autofocus. The manual does not even mention this option, and you cannot set it directly (with a button) or via the Control Panel; it requires going into the menu. Once set, however, it will be used any time the ESP mode is used; fair enough.

The center-weighted mode averages the image area brightness with weights falling off from the center out. Many photographers are used to this system from their film SLRs, and they will find this option familiar.

Spot metering uses the information from the central 2% of the image area. An experienced user may get very good results from this approach, knowing where to point the spot (that area will be rendered at the standard 18% gray level).

In addition, the E-500 offers two variations on that theme: Highlight Spot and Shadow Spot. In principle, these render the metered area as highlight or shadow, but it is unclear (and undocumented) how high or deep, so the photographer has to learn using these options by experience. I prefer to use a regular spot mode and applying exposure compensation, thus being able to say, for example, "I want this point to be 2 EV above standard 18%". It is actually faster (especially with the convenient way in which AE compensation is used in this camera), more controllable. This is why I consider the Highlight and Shadow Spot nothing to write home about.

To make comparisons easier, manufacturers quote the metering range at ISO 100 for a lens with the maximum aperture of F/2.0. On one hand, this levels the playing ground, but on the other, an average user is not sure what actual exposures will the camera be able to measure properly with the lens actually used.

Some simple math brings a more practical way to present this data: EV 1 at F/2 (as quoted) means that with any lens the E-500 is capable to meter exposures equivalent to 2 seconds at the lens full aperture. (This is so simple; surprising that nobody seems to know how to translate one number into another; one day I may write a small article on this. For the time being, trust me.)

Anyway, this is a respectable number. With spot metering the manufacturer's data translates into metering up to 1/2 s exposures, with any lens, again.

The program uses full aperture for shutter speeds up to the one generally recognized as handholdable (one over the equivalent focal length), then increasing the shutter speed and F-number at the same EV rate. reasonable and simple, why not?

The program can be also shifted towards larger or smaller apertures by turning the control wheel, adjusting the shutter speed in the opposite direction as needed to keep the exposure at the same level. Actually, I would like to have an option to disable this feature, as it is too easy to turn the control wheel by accident. (Yes, the feature can be re-assigned to the exposure compensation button, but then you can accidentally apply the compensation instead.)

Aperture and shutter priority work as expected (and if I need to explain what these mean, then you should rather buy a more basic camera), so does metered manual. Time exposures work up to 8 minutes, far beyond the point where the imager noise becomes prohibitive; I don't see many users using eight-minute exposures.

An "Auto" setting is also available on the mode dial; this is essentially the same as Program, except it reverts most of the settings (at least all critical ones, listed in the Control Panel) to their defaults. (It also diables the program shift). The reverted settings can be still modified as you wish. (This note has been changed in August, 2007; it took me almost two years to realize that.)

In some places Olympus refers to these as "creative modes". We could agree with that, but only assuming that "creative" means "I have no clue what and why I'm doing".

For the record, the scene modes include the following: Portrait*, Landscape*, Landscape+Portrait, Night Scene, Night+Portrait*, Children, Sport*, High Key, Low Key, Macro*, Candle, Evening Sun,Fireworks, Documents, and Beach & Snow. The five I've marked with asterisks (*) are available from the mode dial; setting that dial to [Scene] makes all fifteen available from a menu. The latter shows briefly an example picture, reducing it then to a smaller one with a short text which is supposed to serve as an explanation, like "suitable for shooting fireworks at night", in case you cannot figure this out from the mode name.

The scene modes would be more usable if Olympus provided some meaningful explanations in the manual about the settings these modes use, but this is not the case (although you can figure out some of those from the status panel).

As mentioned above, five of the scene modes are also directly accessible from the mode dial. This is almost the same as selecting them from the Scene menu, but not quite: you can modify some settings for modes accessed via the dial, but not when they are accessed from the menu. A subtle difference, not described in the manual.

The compensation is applied in a convenient way: by pressing a button on camera's top with your index finger, and turning the dial with your thumb. As the compensation value is shown inside the finder (assuming you can see it), the adjustment can be done while composing the picture, nice. A minor gripe is that the LCD screen light up during the process, which is generally good, but quite annoying with your eye next to the eyepiece. A sensor, disabling the monitor activation while you are using the viewfinder would be a welcome improvement.

You may also configure the camera so that the compensation is done by turning the dial alone, and pressing the [+/-] button activates program shift. This, however, applies only to the program mode, in shutter and aperture priority you do not have this option, therefore using it would make the interface inconsistent; I wouldn't recommend it.

The bracketed images are not shot as a sequence like in all previous Olympus cameras. You either have to release the shutter three times, or switch to the sequential drive mode. In the first case, the bracketing indicator in the Control Panel, [BKT], turns blue to remind you that you are in a middle of a bracketing series; in the second, the sequence will be automatically terminated when the last bracketed frame has been taken.

Unfortunately, to activate autobracketing you have to dig into the menu system, and I can almost guarantee that this will not be the menu you will start from. Olympus could do better even without assigning a dedicated button to this function — via the Control Panel, where bracketing, if activated, is shown, but from where it cannot be changed in a somewhat inconsistent design.

This is how things work normally, but you may change this order if your working habits differ. For example, in the Single AF mode you have three setups: (1) standard, as above; (2) exposure is determined just before the shutter fires, not at half-press, unless the AEL lock button is used; (3) the AEL button freezes focus, half-press — the exposure. Similar re-assignments are available independently for the Continuous AF and manual focus modes.

There are two more ways to modify these functions. First, you may ask the camera to use a selected metering pattern (matrix, center-weighted, or spot) to be used when the exposure is being locked with the AEL button, regardless of what pattern is used without that button. Some users will want to use spot metering here. Second, the AEL button can be used as a toggle: when it is pressed and released, the autoexposure will be locked until it is pressed again, even for multiple exposures. This is often useful; for example, when shooting composites (panoramas) we do not want to exposure to change from one tile to another.

All this gives you lots of choices in customizing the camera to your liking. It may look convoluted, but has to be done just once; these are not settings you want to change every day. (For details, see my E-500 customization article.)

Index

Focusing

Phase detection is usually better than contrast detection, as the camera's logic knows not only how much off-focus the lens is, but also in which direction, and this speeds the process up.

Generally, I was pleased with AF performance of the E-300; the E-500 is claimed to be improved in this aspect. I wasn't able to see any changes at high light levels (where the E-300 was already very good), but at low light, requiring 1-second and longer exposures, the E-500 is, indeed, better: faster and more reliable, according to my informal tests, performed with both cameras using the same lens.

If the operation is successful, you will know: a small red light briefly blinks at the selected sensor's outline on the focusing screen, a green AF indicator lights up in the information panel inside the finer, and a small beep sounds (this can be disabled). A failed AF operation is signaled only by blinking AF indicator in the information panel.

I'm not thrilled with AF systems sporting seven, nine, or even more sensors. Actually, one is OK with me, as long as it is reliable; I prefer to point the central spot at the part I want in focus, lock, and recompose — this gives the photographer full control. Therefore three sensors in the E-500 is enough, although if I have to use them all, I would prefer the side ones to be sensitive to lines in both directions.

The manual override allows you to adjust focus manually after the AF system did its job. It works as expected with single AF, but I don't have a clue what it does with Continuous AF, and the manual is not helpful at all in explaining the difference. After all, the continuous AF keeps readjusting until the shutter fires. I have tried the C-AF+MF combination, and, to my surprise, it looks like turning the MF ring has no effect whatsoever. Until I know more, I must consider this feature nonexistent.

The manual focus mode is, well, manual. I use it very rarely (mostly with legacy, MF lenses), and the tiny viewfinder image is not really helpful in determining how good the focus is. The only circumstances under which I ever resort to MF with AF lenses is when the camera has no detail to focus on (for example, astrophotography). Under some circumstances you may want to use the AF to set the lens position, and then switch to MF to retain it; this is useful, for example, in pictures of fireworks.

In the manual focus mode you can activate focus bracketing; I believe it can be used only with lenses offering micromotor focusing (like all Olympus ZD ones). You can then take five or seven pictures, with camera shifting the focus after each one: first at the focus as set, then two or three shifted in each direction, with adjustable step.

Note: The manual is wrong stating that the camera will take the sequence by itself: you have to release the shutter five or seven times as needed; only the [BKT] indicator in the control panel shows that you are in a middle of a series. There is also no clean way of breaking out if you change your mind.

The AEL button can be also reassigned to AF lock.

The Olympus dedicated flashes (FL-36, FL-50) provide a built-in, deep-red AF-assist light which also can be used.

For shooting without flash, the assist light is not really necessary, as the AF sensitivity extends below the autoexposure range.

Index

Flash

The flash will pop up by itself in the Auto mode, unless you modify one of the preference settings. Interesting: I thought Minolta had a patent for this; possibly Olympus licensed it. Still, I prefer to keep the auto-popup function disabled. The flash button at the top-left of the camera back can be used to raise the flash when you need it; once that is done, the button is used, together with the control dial, to switch between various flash modes.

The flash raises quite high above the camera body; higher than the one on E-300, but it does not slide forward. I was unable to get a red-eye with it in half hour of trying.

A not-so-nice surprise: the built-in flash cannot be used simultaneously with any of the Olympus units mounted on the hot shoe; its upward movement is obstructed by the locking ring.

This is more painful than it may seem: the internal flash would be very useful as a fill light when an external one is bounced off the ceiling. Neither FL-50 nor FL-36 have a second, fill-in head, and using a flash bracket in this application is just cumbersome. A point in favor of the E-300.

Third party non-dedicated flashes (as well as the older Olympus FL-40 unit) will work with the E-500, but the camera has to be set to manual, with the flash using its own thyristor circuitry. (The results from the FL-40 were very good in this mode.)

Dedicated flashes from other makers, working OK with older Olympus cameras (like the C-5050Z or E-20), may be only partially compatible or non-compatible with the E-500, as the flash communication with the camera was slightly changed when the E-300 was introduced. Do not ask me about particular models, as I have no data on any.

First- and second curtain synchronization determines whether the motion streaks (image created by the ambient light) precede or follow the frozen part of the image (created by flash burst).

"Off" disables the built-in flash even if it is raised (it still may be used for AF assist, though).

The adjustment can be done in steps of 0.3, 0.5, or 1.0 EV, as set in the preferences. It is accessible by holding the exposure compensation button and pressing the flash one; this calls up the compensation scale, so that you can dial in the needed value. You can also adjust flash compensation from the Control Panel (only in full mode.)

Using outdoors fill flash quite often, I consider this a significant improvement over the E-300, where the feature was less useful, accessible only via the menu system.

The FL-50 and FL-36 dedicated flash units allow for flash exposure compensation to be set with use of a dial on the flash itself. This correction is always applied on top of whatever is set on the camera.

This can be verified by taking a picture of (not with!) a slave flash in front of the lens. The slave burst, although visible by the human eye, is not caught in the picture; this means that it is triggered before the shutter opens. Changing the camera's flash operation to manual gets rid of the pre-flash, and the slave's burst is then visible in the picture.

The internal flash has manual settings (1, 1/4, 1/16, and 1/64 of full power) accessible — only if enabled from the Settings menu. These can be used to trigger slave units, also providing some fill. (For the sake of adjustable fill, I would prefer to have 1 EV, not 2 EV steps in power settings.) On the FL-50 and FL-36, the light output can be manually adjusted with the dial on the flash unit itself (the in-camera settings are disabled then).

Note that slave units are the only way to use multiple flashes with the E-500 (or any other E-System SLR).

With a dedicated flash only shutter speeds up to 1/160 s can be set by hand; this limit can be lowered in 1/3 EV steps down to 1/60 s. (The manual is wrong, stating the 1/320 s maximum speed with the built-in flash.)

The dedicated Olympus units (FL-36, FL-50) also offer a special mode, called "Super FP" by Olympus, in which not a single, short light burst is emitted, but a series of smaller bursts, together covering a time span longer than it takes the shutter to travel the whole frame height. This is close enough to a uniform burst of that length, and it allows for flash synchronization at any shutter speed. A downside is that the guide number in this mode is significantly lower, and the flash uses more energy.

While this is not a critical feature, some photographers find it useful when using fill flash in bright daylight.

My rough estimate is that the Super FP mode uses 200 or more light pulses to achieve approximately uniform lighting over the frame area, but I wasn't able to verify this number. I was, however, able to confirm that the frame is, indeed, exposed uniformly.

Index

Power

The performance of the E-300 with BLM-1 was very satisfactory, and on the C-5060WZ — nothing short of outstanding. The E-500 uses more power than E-300 (backlighting the bigger LCD screen!).

The officially claimed number of picture with the BLM-1 is only 20% lower for the E-500 than it was for the E-300, but my experience seems to be worse than that; I'm changing the battery about twice as often. I have not conducted any comparative tests, so this is an unscientific statement, but still. It may have something to do with the fact that I tend to use the LCD display more heavily (it is so darn nice!); I'm not ready to draw any strong conclusions, but the impression remains.

I suspect that the shorter battery life may be, in a large part at least, related to significant power usage in the sleep mode. Forgetting to turn the camera off resulted a number of times in the battery being almost empty the next morning.

(Version 1.1 of the firmware, released in December of 2005, seems to have fixed this problem.)

While I would feel more secure with rechargeable NiMH AA's, which can be replaced with alkalines in an emergency, the BLM-1 is a high-capacity power source, and it has a low self-discharge rate, i.e., it loses less charge when the camera is stored for extended periods of time.

A spare BLM-1 should be your first extra accessory for the E-500. I am serious here.

Warning: On some (mostly European?) markets the E-500 is packaged without the BLM-1 battery, and without the charger; just with the LBH-1 holder for CR123 batteries (see below). This is perhaps to keep the cost down, but the savings is problematic, as you will have to get a BLM-1 and charger anyway for any serious use.

Still, dropping the LBH-1 holder into your bag may give you some extra sense of security against your batteries or charger dying in the most unexpected moment.

LBH-1 will also work with the E-1, E-300, and, I believe, C-5060/7070WZ.

I do not mind at all the lack of external power option, or the power grip. The grip would increase the camera's size and weight considerably, while external, tethered power does not provide a real advantage against freshly-charged BCM-1 with its high capacity.

Index

LCD monitor

It is not just the matter of physical size. Many cameras (including some of the newer Olympus models) sport 2.5" monitors. This one, however, also offers significantly improved resolution, increased from 135,000 to 215,000 pixels (or rather RGB sub-pixels, as per the industry's misleading way of quoting this specification).

A small fragment of the display is shown at the left; you can see that each honeycomb-cell pixel consists of three vertical RGB stripes. A quick count of the pixels (stripe triplets) shows a resolution slightly below 320×240, or close to 70,000 pixels, consistent with my remark above.

Let us check the numbers: the 94% increase in the monitor area is accompanied by 59% more pixels. This makes the data display and image review about 30% more detailed, a visible improvement, while pixels themselves are also be slightly bigger; the display can be viewed from a larger distance, a welcome news for people with middle-aged vision.

Unfortunately, doubling the monitor area has an impact on battery life, as screen backlighting is the major component of camera's power usage. Nothing comes free, although the battery life is still very good.

Anyway, the monitor is bright and contrasty, a pleasure to use. I'm not surprised, as it is made by Sharp, and those people know their job better than anyone else.

The first press on the [Info] button or on [OK] brings in the simplified Control Panel; the second one — the full version (items marked with asterisks are available only in the latter; the date only in the former). The panel is very easy to get used to, and you can set it to one of two different color schemes, a nice touch.

Most importantly, the panel can be used to change most of the settings it displays: press the [OK] button, then use the cursor keys to highlight the desired settings, and turn the wheel to change it. Very convenient; to do it via the regular menu system you would have to be a masochist.

In an unwelcome exception from this rule, two displayed fields are passive only: the bracketing indicator, and the AF-assist flash setting. These are, actually, the only two things which I would like to be changed. The bracketing indicator does not show what bracketing is in use, nor does it allow for changes, and the AF-assist status also just sits there.

As I mentioned above, the Control Panel can be invoked with the [Info] or [OK] buttons. There is a small difference between these two ways: in the latter case the panel will go away as soon as the adjustment is done (another [OK] or wheel inactivity timeout). A nice touch.

The exposure information is shown in larger characters on the top, and the exposure compensation is shown both as a numeric and an adjustment scale, with the latter showing both the "regular" and flash adjustment.

In general, an excellent job, making the camera much faster, more pleasant, and less error-prone in use. The only disadvantage is that the Control Panel uses battery power (for economy, the camera enters the sleep mode after one minute or more of inactivity, adjustable from the settings).

It would be also nice to have an auto switch, turning the panel off when the camera is brought up to the eye — but maybe I'm just getting spoiled.

It took me just a few weeks with the camera to grow addicted to this monitor. This may be the most significant improvement from the E-300, and for some it may be enough of a reason to upgrade.

The [Info] key is used to switch between various display modes, differing in the amount and kind of information shown.

The "basic information" display comes in two flavors: more and less basic. The first one shows the card used, quality setting, file name, and frame number; the second adds image size and compression, date, and time.

Real fun starts in the detailed display mode. The image is reduced to 1/4 of the screen (it now includes the indicator of the AF sensor used), and adds all, or almost all, relevant exposure information. Most importantly, it also shows four, tiny but still useful, histograms: luminance and individual RGB components.

The RGB histograms can be quite useful in analyzing pictures of brightly-colored objects, where the general luminance may stay within limits, but an individual RGB channel may be overloaded: for example, a deep red without all detail lost. I'm having this problem sometimes in pictures of flowers.

The clipped highlight and shadow displays are also useful. The affected areas are shown blinking; you may spot burned-out areas which are too small to be noticeable in a histogram. I wonder why these two were implemented separately; I would imagine having them in the same display would not be difficult, simplifying the view mode sequence.

Turning the control wheel allows you to adjust the viewed image magnification (up to 14×) or to enter the thumbnail viewing mode (plus the calendar for easy jump to pictures from a given day). While the image is magnified, you can scroll over it with the arrow keys.

The 14× magnification sounds better than it really is; actually only magnifications up to 8× or so are really useful; at higher ones the image display gets quite fuzzy. I suspect Olympus is using the internally stored thumbnail for this display, with much less detail than in the actual picture; some JPEG artifacts showing in the enlarged view (but not in the final image) seem to confirm this theory.

The reference WB key, when pressed in the image display mode, will toggle between three states:

• Full frame with a 10%×10% fragment marked at the center; the arrow keys will move that fragment around, and the control wheel will change the its size;
• The fragment magnified to the full screen size; arrow keys move between images while the magnification stays the same; the control wheel changes the magnification.
• The fragment magnified as above; arrow keys move it within the image; wheel changes the magnification.

Unfortunately, there is no quick way to leave any of these three, jumping back to the normal, full-frame display; you have to use the dial to get back to it. To make things more confusing, once you enter any of these three states, the same toggle functionality is duplicated by the [Info] key, which no longer works as described above. This almost-but-not-quite duplication is quite annoying, an obvious design error. It would be much better to keep the [Info] button at its original task, regardless of magnification. Modal user interfaces are always undesirable, and this one is just evil.

Last but not least, you can compare the same fragments of magnified images side-by-side in two halves of the display (press the AF point selection button to do this). I used this feature just once: with the low quality of the magnified display, it is better to postpone any selections to the postprocessing stage. I'm very tempted to call this feature a useless trinket.

Interestingly, there is no separate video output socket like in all previous Olympus cameras; this has been integrated with the USB connection.

To accommodate the dual functionality, that connection had to be changed to a non-standard one, different than in all Olympus cameras from 2001 on (and most cameras by other makers). I am not happy about this: another cable to keep track of and to carry when traveling with two cameras. I understand that the design might have saved Olympus a dollar or so in manufacturing costs, but I doubt the savings were worth the hassle (mine and yours).