Great value for money.
Controls are easy to use, and the camera is quite responsive. Overall construction is good, but watch the battery and memory card doors - they look flimsy. The camera feels comfortable to hold.
The 10 megapixel sensor delivers incredible detail. Color accuracy is generally very good. Olympus has noise mostly under control. There's very little chroma noise, so I keep the noise filter switched off. I sometime remove the noise in post processing. Images at ISO 800 are pretty good. At ISO 1600, the image quality will range from good to poor, depending on the scene.
The camera is full-featured. The biggest missing software feature is an exposure bracket wider than +/- 1. That's a pretty small item.
Live view is handy, but would be much more useful if it had live/continuous autofocus. Nonetheless, it has proven useful on a number of occasions when I could not otherwise frame a shot. It's also useful when using manual focus.
Image stabilization is a huge help when shooting static scenes. It's good for at least 2 stops. I even captured a crisp photo of the moon, handheld at 1/20th of a second and at 150mm (300mm equivalent)!
Autofocus is fast and accurate in good light. In low light conditions, the camera takes a lot longer to focus. The camera uses the built-in flash as an autofocus aid. If you shoot in very low light, i recommend one of the Olympus flashes with an autofocus illuminator. The three AF points generally suffice, but there are occasions where it would be nice to have more so I can alter composition while using continuous autofocus.
The kit lenses are very good, especially the telezoom. However, the higher quality Olympus lenses are truly outstanding, so you may want to consider getting the 14-54mm, 50mm, 11-22mm and 50-200mm.
The sensor cleaning feature works well. I have never had any dust on my sensor.
Battery life is excellent.
Overall, a great camera that's hard to beat at the price, especially with the kit lenses. Biggest negative is the lack of a decent AF illuminator for lowlight photography.
Problems:
I had underexposure problems with firmware 1.0. Firmware 1.1 fixed the issue.
Noise reduction (dark frame subtraction) doesn't kick-in until exposures are 8 seconds+. It should kick in around 1/2 a second to a second. I hope future firmware updates will fix this.
Controls are easy to use, and the camera is quite responsive. Overall construction is good, but watch the battery and memory card doors - they look flimsy. The camera feels comfortable to hold.
The 10 megapixel sensor delivers incredible detail. Color accuracy is generally very good. Olympus has noise mostly under control. There's very little chroma noise, so I keep the noise filter switched off. I sometime remove the noise in post processing. Images at ISO 800 are pretty good. At ISO 1600, the image quality will range from good to poor, depending on the scene.
The camera is full-featured. The biggest missing software feature is an exposure bracket wider than +/- 1. That's a pretty small item.
Live view is handy, but would be much more useful if it had live/continuous autofocus. Nonetheless, it has proven useful on a number of occasions when I could not otherwise frame a shot. It's also useful when using manual focus.
Image stabilization is a huge help when shooting static scenes. It's good for at least 2 stops. I even captured a crisp photo of the moon, handheld at 1/20th of a second and at 150mm (300mm equivalent)!
Autofocus is fast and accurate in good light. In low light conditions, the camera takes a lot longer to focus. The camera uses the built-in flash as an autofocus aid. If you shoot in very low light, i recommend one of the Olympus flashes with an autofocus illuminator. The three AF points generally suffice, but there are occasions where it would be nice to have more so I can alter composition while using continuous autofocus.
The kit lenses are very good, especially the telezoom. However, the higher quality Olympus lenses are truly outstanding, so you may want to consider getting the 14-54mm, 50mm, 11-22mm and 50-200mm.
The sensor cleaning feature works well. I have never had any dust on my sensor.
Battery life is excellent.
Overall, a great camera that's hard to beat at the price, especially with the kit lenses. Biggest negative is the lack of a decent AF illuminator for lowlight photography.
Problems:
I had underexposure problems with firmware 1.0. Firmware 1.1 fixed the issue.
Noise reduction (dark frame subtraction) doesn't kick-in until exposures are 8 seconds+. It should kick in around 1/2 a second to a second. I hope future firmware updates will fix this.