Olympus E-410 / EVOLT E-410

Opinion: Very compact DSLR.
Excellent build quality.
I bought with 2 kits lenses - very good value for money.
Brilliant Zuiko lenses, which can be used with M4/3.
Overall I am very happy about the system.

Opinion: I purchased this camera with the 2 kit lenses in 2007 as my first DSLR and it's a great little camera and with a few adjustments produces excellent images I now keep it as backup for my E620

Opinion: I love this camera, this is my first DSLR, it is ease to use, it
is very light. After a couple of years using it I am taking
the photos in raw format and with lightroom making the
post procesing and the result are amazing.

Opinion: My first DSLR.

And still, after trying out more than a dozen others...still so many of my favourite images were taken with this fellow and its kit lens (actually, I had the older kit lens: 14-45mm).

I used old OM glass a lot too, and never had a problem with the viewfinder, I could focus fine. OM glass will still produce excellence even on a small(ish) 10mp sensor.

A brilliant camera, with a useful live-view mode (tho' rarely used).

I personally prefer the E-410 images to the E-400.

Little RAW headroom tho', which is Oly-typical. But Oly also boast the most complete JPG's so shoot them instead.

ISO-management can be a bother, but it has more to do with your choice of composition as to whether the noise will look desirable or not (people shots at night actually look quite good...).

One big plus for me for the E-410 is that the images always look deep...and I'm not talking about DoF here.

One big minus for me is that sometimes sharpness can look a little processed.

Still, great camera...I would choose this over the Canikon entry-level efforts any day. And the E-510 is even better.

Opinion: I purchased this model for my hunny in early 2009

I told her its time she moved up and got rid of the point and shoot toy. I picked this camera for her because of the live view.

I personaly dont care for the live view, but its what she wanted. E410 is currently being tested for in studio portrait and fashion work, I can not wait to see the results and how she handles this amazing camera

Opinion: I got the E-410 2 lens kit at a boxing day sale for $379 CDN. After 4 months, I am still amazed at the value of this camera with the kit lenses, which offer very good performance in a small package, certainly better than other maker's kit lenses. As a long time OM system user since the 70s, I love the small size of the 410. Yes, the VF is on the small side, but considering this is an SLR priced not much more than many compacts, this can be forgiven. In summary, and excellent introduction to the DSLR world, and the kit lenses are good enough to keep when I upgrade to a newer body like the E-620.

Opinion: For ~$370 U.S. new (closeout) with the 14-40 kit lens, this is a solid little machine at a magic price. The kit lens impresses, the sensor..not as much. In my opinion, this camera is far less forgiving than larger dSLR's like my 30D. You get what you pay for. It does have better output than a small-sensor p/s cameras, though.

Perfectly exposed shots are nice, but this sensor just seems tricky. Go manual/center-weighted and approach it like you are shooting positive film; you'll have much more success. Highlight clipping is really easy and shadow noise is ugly. Also, there are lots of menu choices that can really give you chewy jpegs. RAW gives you a bit more flexibility, especially to combat the inconsistent WB.

Love the size!

Opinion: It really is tiny!
I bought one off ebay on special offer, the twin kit bundled with the 14-42 and 40-150. On paper its not that much smaller or lighter than the rest, but believe me, without a bulge for the hand grip / battery storage it makes all the difference! It feels more like a chunky OM-1 (if you are old enough to have owned one) and fits in equally sized camera bags. The 14-42 lens is all plastic, not my normal cup of tea, but actually helps to keep the weight down on the end of the camera. for that I like it very much.
functionality- to start off I also own an E-1 and can say the viewfinder isn't as bad as reviewers seem to make out, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how close it was to the E-1 (I put one camera to one eye and the other to the next and found the difference was quite marginal) .
I'm still getting used to it but the back display menu is great,I have to admit , 3 weeks on I'm still finding my way through everything though. I shoot RAW so half the stuff in the rest of the menus is pretty irrelevant, although I switched off all the noise options. It has mirror up which I find a bit irrational that they call it "anti-shock". God to have though!
Image quality- for the offer price they are going for, excellent. If you compare it to compacts or Bridge cameras, then it really is a step ahead.
I admit to using a pentax K100D and K10D most of the time and image quality is "about" the same, not really fair to compare directly as I'm no expert, but I do miss the IS stabilization that makes all difference at times ( not fair either, should have got an e-5xx if I wanted the feature).
The mirror / shutter release sounds much nicer on the oly than the pentaxes, silly ok, but a pleasant bonus.
In summary-if you need the smallest lightest SLR and can pick one up at a low price, its a superb little model.
Oh, and the two lens kit is an excellent deal, although I'm sure the new 25mm pancake is a match made in heaven for the e-420, but it cost 50% more than my purchase!!
One last thing, I bought a CF to SD memory adapter and have had no problems using it in the camera with 2GB.

Opinion: Great value for money, good construction, very nice colours and excellent kit lenses. Dedicated buttons for ISO, WB, focusing and metering are invaluable. Very fast too. ISO perfectally usable even at 1600, very good at 800.