Olympus Stylus 500 (mju 500 Digital)

Opinion: This is my second camera, the first being a fuji s304 which took fantastic quality photo's but was a bit slow.

In comparison, I'm not impressed with the mju 500 :-

1) no viewfinder - makes photo subject very difficult to see on bright days, you end up squinting at the screen with your hand over the camera, viewfinder would be a lot easier, plus lots of potential to scratch and break such a large screen.

2) camera is very iffy about picking up the correct brightness, in sunshine, some photo's come out too bright, some too dull, some come out fine. spend a lot of time playing with settings to get right picture. you can see on the screen what it will come out like & sometimes you only have to move the camera about a millimetre for it to adjust this is very annoying

3) flash seems to work in all conditions, even fairly light days... why???

4) too many unnecesary options on the menu & selector switch can be easily moved when in a camera case - very annoying if you want to pull it out to take a quick photo only to spend seconds wondering what's wrong with it - by the time you've realised the selector has moved the photo opportunity is gone.

5) power button can be pressed in accidently - not good when camera is in case & lens is trying to come out, potential for damage.

6) screen does not appear to be particularly good quality - photo's generally look disappointing on screen until they are downloaded onto pc,

Having said all this I realise I haven't yet taken it off its auto program type in which it tries to detect what type of photo you are taking (sport, scenery etc), maybe it works better when set to a specific one, but there are 20 different options plus numerous other settings - too much choice and by the time you've messed about with all these your photo opportunity has long since gone, particularly if you like taking mixed sports action/scenery shots.

maybe I'm asking too much of a small camera, but the fuji although slightly larger and older was heaps better (sadly it died after several years).

Opinion: I have this camera as well as the D-545 Olympus. I perefer this camera. The extra large LCD screen is fabulous. Scene modes make quick shots a breeze. No viewfinder forces use of LCD to compose the photo. As with all Olympus Digital cameras, the menu gives the user a lot of control.

Opinion: This is an excellent "take along" camera for those who have DSLRs, and a great camera for novices. I've had it for about 5 months, now, and had excellent results with it. Images have excellent color, and fairly low noise. The scene modes work well, and my technology challenged wife (hope she doesn't read this, lol) can use it easily.

Opinion: Easy to use, fits anywhere. Splash and dust proof.
Picture quality okay but not as good as the stylus 410 IMHO.
New battery lasts longer but the ones from earlier stylus can be used too. they also fit in the same charger

Opinion: the picture quality is in high quality.
overall a nice digital camera for new users.