Olympus EVOLT E-510

Manual Control Options
The EVOLT E-510 allows the user to manually set aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, metering pattern and other parameters key to the appearance of an image. Many of the controls would be more convenient if the EVOLT E-510 had a second control dial, but the controls are logically laid out and not hard to find.

Focus
Auto Focus
Olympus promises that the EVOLT E-510 will have faster autofocus and better low-light focusing than its predecessors. This is to some extent dependent on firmware. Olympus says the cameras we examined don't have final firmware, so we don't know how well the production camera will do. We look forward to conducting full tests of the E-510.

The EVOLT E-510's button for selecting the autofocus zone is kind of cute – it's the same place Canon puts theirs. The difference is, Canon cameras have a meaningful number and arrangement of autofocus zones – Olympus has just three, and they're in a line close to the center of the screen. It's kind of like an ice cream shop that offers only vanilla, vanilla bean, and vanilla frozen yogurt.

The EVOLT E-510 offers five focusing modes: Single mode, which causes the focusing mechanism to stop, once it has reached focus; continuous, which has the focus mechanism continue to evaluate focus while the shutter release is partially pressed; manual focus; single; and continuous, with the option of manual override. [MR: Single and continuous are listen twice – are there five different focusing modes?]

Autofocus in live view is problematic: the screen freezes, the reflex mirror flips down, the camera focuses, the mirror flips back up, and the view comes back to life. The user loses the live view for 1 or 2 seconds while the camera focuses.

Manual Focus
Manual focus is possible through the optical viewfinder, but it's inferior to autofocus. It’s also far inferior to focus in live view. The live view's 7x and 10x magnifiers allow critical focus at any spot in the field of view. The user can pan around the field with the 4-way controller, and the refresh rate of the screen seems good – the camera kept up with focus adjustments and camera movement. One gripe is that the magnifier isn't an easy tool to find. A few Olympus staff at PMA wrongly concluded that it didn't exist after they spent a while looking for it. Pressing and holding in INFO button for a few seconds brings it up.

We expect that macro shooters in particular will value live view in manual focus mode.

Exposure
The EVOLT E-510 offers exposure compensation of up to 5 EV above or below the meter reading, in 1/3 increments. The tool is available in Program, Aperture priority, and Shutter priority. The E-510 also offers exposure lock and bracketing, with a choice of either 2/3 or 1 EV increments.

Metering
Olympus calls its evaluative metering system "ESP." ESP measures light at 49 points throughout the field of view, and it uses a mathematical algorithm to compare them and try to detect tricky lighting, such as strong backlighting or unusual contrast between the subject and the background.

The EVOLT E-510 also offers a typical center-weighted system and three spot metering modes: a typical one, which yields a standard exposure at the metered area, a highlight spot, which sets an exposure that yields an exposure that renders the metered area as a highlight, and a shadow spot.

Our look at the E-510 didn't allow us to evaluate the performance of these modes; we'll examine them in our full review.

White Balance
Olympus shows an engineering bent in its white balance system. Each of its presets has a name (lamp, daylight, cloudy, shade, and fluorescent settings 1 through 3), and each name is accompanied by its Kelvin equivalent. The user can also set Kelvin temperatures directly or generate a reading by sampling a white subject. There is also an auto mode. The EVOLT E-510 can fine-tune the auto setting or the presets and bracket white balance.

ISO
The EVOLT E-510's ISO range runs from 100 to 1600, in full-EV increments. The auto ISO setting can be restricted to a maximum value of 800 or lower. Particularly in cameras with noise problems, it is useful to see ISO settings with 1/3-EV increments, so the user doesn't have to raise the ISO any higher than absolutely necessary. Olympus says the E-510 has better noise performance than earlier EVOLTs, but noise has been a problem for them in the past.

Shutter Speed
The EVOLT E-510's shutter speed ranges from 1/4000 to 60 seconds, plus a time exposure setting. The range can be set in 1/3-EV steps. The range is plenty for the typical casual photographer. 1/4000 will freeze most typical motion, and 60 seconds is probably a practical limit for color and noise performance. Again, testing a production camera will give a clear appraisal of these options.

Aperture
The EVOLT E-510 sets aperture electronically in 1/3-EV steps. The maximum apertures on the kit lens are f/3.5 to 5.6 – a range that is very limiting for available-light photography. We imagine that many users would benefit from adding a wider-aperture lens to their system. Flash, particularly from the small built-in unit, won't be as pleasing as available light exposure.