D40 or Oly E510????

After reading all the evaluations, discussions. debates I am ready to choose btw Nikon D40 w/kit lenses or Olympus E510. Please give me some expert opinions for choosing one. I am an amateur with no experience in DSLR or photography as a whole. I will take mostly landscape and animals. Thank you in advance.

E510 got increditable FAST focus speed compare to D40x,,,other than that nothing to shot out,,,both come with nice IQ and good handling.

D40x produce good VR and less noise

E510 has dust buster and built-in image stablizer. Its two-lens kit package is just slightly more expensive than D40.

Both are fine starter DSLRs, but if you have not much to start with, I'd suggest you the E510.
--
Harry

Dust shaker and Live view are the two features I am envying.
I still have some time left to decide to keep my Costco D40X kit.

thanks for all the suggestions about Oly E510 . It seems to me nobody talks about D40 yet. I hope to hear some more opinions.

qdog said:

thanks for all the suggestions about Oly E510 . It seems to me nobody
talks about D40 yet. I hope to hear some more opinions.

Click to expand...

The D40X is an better camera.with the 18-70
or the Sony A100 for an little prise also with the 18-70
got dustremoval antyshake for under $500
klick here for some pictures.
A100
D70s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73737307@N00/sets/

I had an oly and sel it to sombody els,lences for thad camera is hard to find.
and verry costly,also the cropping factor is 1/5
50mm is 100mm
wide angle lences are hards to find and costly.
14mm is 28 mm on the oly

the oly take good pictures but with hard colors,and need abit shadows and highlichts when you take pictures in hard contrast like belgium where the sun is low on the sky.

remember you need the lcd to take pictures,everything work with the lcd screen
most settings.

while A100 and D70 use the lcd just for looking at your pictures.
so batterie live is shorter with the oly.
--
Demarren.
Website :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73737307@N00/sets/ Nikon D70s Kodak P880 Canon S3 IS Canon G7 Sony A100

qdog said:

After reading all the evaluations, discussions. debates I am ready to
choose btw Nikon D40 w/kit lenses or Olympus E510. Please give me
some expert opinions for choosing one. I am an amateur with no
experience in DSLR or photography as a whole. I will take mostly
landscape and animals. Thank you in advance.

Click to expand...

Nikon DX DSLRs have a crop factor of x1.5 and the Olympus has a crop factor of x2. It is going to be easier for you to get wider with the Nikon for landscapes.

You might be happy with the width of the kit lenses - Nikon 18mm = 27mm equivalent and Olympus 14mm = 28mm equivalent. However, if you need to go wider there is the excellent Sigma 10-20 HSM lens avialable for the Nikon. For the Olympus I think that you would need to get the Zuiko 7-14 at about four times the cost of the Sigma lens.

Regards

Paul

First of all, I'd like to preface my remarks by stating loudly (and boldly) that I'm a self-professed international camera whore! Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I do want to say that I do not limit myself (or should I say, chain myself) to any one brand. All brands of cameras (well, save for some) make superb cameras and for the most part, it's the person behind the viewfinder who determines the success of his efforts.

Having said that, I have both the D40 (not the x version) and the E510 and I wouldn't give up either one.

I personally prefer the 6 MP D40 because of the larger pixel size, the superb high ISO performance and how it feels in the hand. The images are superb and they often defy the fact that it is only a 6 MP camera. I just keep one lens on it...the rather superb 18-70 zoom lens. My copy has to be tack sharp and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Since this is a Nikon forum (albeit not the DSLR forum), I won't go into in other details of how nice the D40 is...si many know this to be true.

But let me now introduce you to the E510 - a remarkable camera, and you can pick up the body for $475 - can you believe that. We're talkin' about a 10 MP camera with a superb in-body IS system that converts all your lenses into stabilized versions, plus all Oly cams have internal pixel mapping - so if you ever get a dead pixel, just go into the menu and select "map pixels," and within seconds...the issue is solved. Now the case with any other brand - in which you have to send in your camera to have the pixels mapped out...at a cost to you.

Now also include the finest dustbuster on the market (Oly has a patent on it), and you begin to see the makings of a superb DSLR. In fact, it's not uncommon to change lenses on Olympus DSLR's for years and never have a problem with dust - their dustbuster works that well. I had to laugh when other brands used to laugh at Olympus has having lots of gimmicks (like the dust buster, or most recently...live view). But guess what happened on the way to the forums (pun intended)? Now everybody is copying these features - go figure. The E510 has a superb feel to it and everything is logically placed. You can even get a 3rd party battery grip for it (here's a picture below with the battery grip attached):



It should be noted that many people posting on the Olympus forums are dual system owners - meaning they (me included) shoot both Nikon and Olympus cameras and we thoroughly enjoy them both. To limit yourself is really bad and that's why I have nothing to do with the typically self-limiting fanboy types who berate other brands simply because they shoot something entirely different.

One of the biggest attractors to Olympus cameras is how they render colors. There is a certain richness to the colors that once you get accustomed to...it's hard to give up. It originally started by the E-1, which is now a classic for its stunning color, and of course now the latest crop are carrying on the tradition.

Here are some E-510 image samples and towards the bottom are the ISO 800 and 1600 samples. All taken in RAW, AWB, Aperture Priority Mode - and all with IS engaged.















And here are some ISO 800 through 1600 images:



















As always - good shooting....

Ben

Thanks all of you that gave me some ideas about D40 and E510. I've talked my wife into buying D40 for her upcoming escort tour in May 08 to Eastern Europe and E510 for myself. Those two DSLRs are bought here in Houston from Wolf camera. It was $650 for D40 with 18-55 and 55-200 lenses plus carrying bag and free printer after $100 rebate. The Oly E510 was for $799.99 with just one kit lens 14-42mm. So now we are trying to take picture of each other.....:+).

Another important note besides cameras is that everybody needs to go out and vote.........for your candidate . Democrat needs to win in order for us to get out of Iraq......Just my wish.

A big issue for me would be lens availability. When I was really into photography, I rented a lot of lenses on an as needed basis. This is a really cost effective way to have just the lens you need without spending a bundle.

However, this is only true for Nikon and Canon lenses. Try renting another brand and prepare to be frustrated.

Unless there are miles of difference between them in some other critical area, I would go Nikon or Canon. I have nothing against Olympus but it's just a fact of life.

Good luck.

Never ever delve into politics - whether directly or indirectly as it brings out the boundary marker and then people take sides. Relationships can be tarnished and it is never good when this happens. So keeping politics and religion out of these threads is a wise thing to do - trust me on this one.
--
As always - good shooting....

Ben