The E 520 is my to begin with DSLR and I experience it now since April '09 (the Easter Bunny brought it : ) and that i can't say enough good things in regards to this camera or this combo.

The camera is lightweight enough to place non stop without getting tired but sturdy enough to be able to feel "cheap". Two of the kit lenses cover much of the distances the average user should seek or need, and again neither an example may be a back breaker. I personally use them the 40 150mm lake will spend on a daily basis at the zoo to bring the animals nearer to me (simply because they won't i can get nearer to them : ).

One really nifty feature the fact that camera offers is a capability to use Live View Boost to concentrate and frame pictures using an infrared filter into position on the front of your lens in order to actually see just what camera will record. Pretty cool.

The controls are simple to use and i believe the only real challenge We have encountered where they're concerned is absolutely not in employing them using remembering things use when and also remember what menu it can be under. Fortunately, almost all issues you must have quite often (wb, AF, Flash, ISO, etc.) also provide dedicated buttons readily available now for the camera body. You may as well set your very own custom profile combos to lead you to quickly switch from established to another and not have to remember find out what you did the past time that you will liked.

The 20 scene modes make life not hard particularly when you could be only starting out or neighborhood retailer desire to think and just have to shoot. Plus the ability (with the optional waterproof housing and lightweight) to shoot underwater would have been a awesome action to take.

Color is fabulous, clarity extremely good, the opportunity to remotely control the FL 36R or FL 50R flash units without the need to get them connected to the camera by wires of any kind is wonderful too.

A word concerning proprietary XD card (the camera supports three different recording formats, CF, XD and Microdrive (But who uses those really?)) you'll have the invite while in the camera beyond just the CF card and that i would recommend having one only for the panoramic assist option that is certainly only available begin using the XD card. The panoramic assist supports horizontal and vertical pans and also stitching application is constructed into the Olympus Master software that comes standard using the camera.

The only down side to presenting this camera is you could find it difficult to get all the variants of lenses displayed a nearby camera store (but there is always Amazon) as Nikon and Cannon have much better marketing. Oh, your decide one more word about lenses, you can get adapters which could mean you can use as well as Olympus OM mount lenses from the SLR as well as Pentax, Minolta, Nikon, Cannon, Miyama, and they all others. Olympus only is the OM mount adapter you can find lots of the others aftermarket. You have to be ready to manually focus and hang the f stop about the lens itself as those features aren't going to be supported over the adapters however sure unwraps options.