If you can live with the noise you'll love it
First of all, don't buy this camera before looking at prices on the newer model E-520. I just saw newer E-520 for less than the price I see listed on this item (subject to change over time, of course). I'll continue with a comment or two on this model in case you have a chance to get a steal of a price on a used one.

I've had my E-510 for almost three years now and have loved using it and learning about photography with it. I've gotten some spectacular shots with it. Blah blah, I'm sure you can find detailed specs and glowing praise in other reviews. I just want to comment on the two things that irritate me about this camera.

First, the higher ISO settings are pretty much unusable due to the ridiculous amount of noise and banding you'll see in areas that aren't extremely well lit. Olympus DSLRs are notorious for this problem. I'd love to see them make a breakthrough in their sensors before I upgrade cameras because I've invested in this system. But if they don't do something drastic to increase the usability of the higher ISO settings, I'm going to abandon them for Nikon.

Second, the exposure bracketing makes HDR photography painful to attempt. You can only take three bracketed exposures in a row and then only 1 EV apart from each other. I found out about HDR technique a only few months after buying this camera and then began regretting having chosen this one. Live and learn.

Otherwise, if you aren't bothered by those two shortcomings, and you aren't planning to be a pro shooter, you will probably LOVE this little DSLR. It's been great in just about every other way.

Good entry level/first DSLR
I've had this DSLR for two years now. So far this E510 has survived three different countries - Micronesia, Kuwait and Afghanistan. I like this camera but it is not perfect. I had trouble getting used to the Camera's white-balance - light spots in the photos were always over-exposed until I had a friend show me how to use the camera in program mode. The predialed modes are not very good outside in direct sunlight.

The dust reduction system I don't really understand. Only after a few months there was dust inside the lens and the body it's self. I don't see how it cleans its self. The camera feels good in the hand and is smaller than a lot of DSLRs - I like that. The flash system is a bit slow, though. I don't like that.

Over all this camera is a good beginner camera to learn from with the intent of jumping into semi-pro, pro DSLR models. I jumpled from my Canon S3 IS to this...I didn't like this DSLR over the Canon S3 IS - I will never buy Olympus again, though, simply because of the overexposure problems of light areas within every photo unless you play with settings here and there to compensate. I'm going back to Canon and my next purchase is the 7D with some very good quality lenses.

E-510 Photography Star
I've been an Olympus fan since the OM line was introduced. In fact, I resisted making the digital switch until just 18 months ago. The E-330 was my first Digital SLR and it gave me pixel-fever... more megapixels please!

The E-510 does it all. It provides a fully automatic that anyone can use or, extreme manual control for the pro. Coupled with OLY digital lenses, I gave an exhaustive test using the kit lenses for macro photography to scenics that just blows me away.

Making the switch from the OM to the E-series was surprisingly painless. Even though there is much more capability and options, they make sense and are convenient. Many times I don't have to look at the body, fingers just know where to go for a feature/option.

Once I started buying better lenses, it continued to provide amazing results. Above all others I highly recommend the Zuiko Digital ED 50-200mm F2.8 SWD. The other I use extensively is the Zuiko Digital ED 14-54mm F2.8 Come on Nikon and Canon users, I welcome a shootout any day.

Next was the coupled flashes... even though there is an incredible amount of flexibility and control with the "built-in" flash I still went with the FL-50 unit and I depend on it for weddings. Great range, consistently good exposures, even more flexibility and control.

A brief departure to the E-520. Bought it. Returned it. Sorry Olympus, you blew it big time. The E-510 consistently shoots better and you can depend on the image being there. Not so for the next generation.

I'll never give up my E-510 until it dies... maybe I'd better buy one and keep it stored. The E-620 is my next purchase. The additional features on it are unbelievable at the price. Test reviews are very good. Gotta have one to keep my E-510 company. Any one want to by an E-330?

Learning Curve is Straightening Out
I purchased the Olympus Digital SLR to replace my point-and-shoot so I could get better quality photographs of my grandson's high school wrestling matches... all indoors under widely varying light conditions and at varying distances. I am a photography neophyte so have spent much time reading and studying the manual... there are so many features that it took me quite a while to determine which ones were most important for my needs, but the manual is detailed and well-written and I finally got all the settings correct. I am getting excellent quality photographs. I use mostly AUTO settings, but do switch to aperture and shutter speed settings from time to time. I haven't used the camera for scenic photos, such as when I am on vacation, so can't comment on that yet. The extra 150mm lens comes in handy when I have to stay in the bleachers during the matches... but the aperture is only 5.0 so lighting is an issue. I purchased an external flash unit which helps some. I would have no hesitation recommending this camera.

3.5/5 This camera is perfect for me, but does have some issues.
I bought the E-510 because it came with two lenses, was very light-weight and came with a live-view LCD screen, and dust sensor. Well, I got what I wanted! I bought it used and it seemed in perfect condition.

I do everything on manual because I love control, and I haven't used any of its automatic settings, so my review is based on the manual performance of the camera. The picture quality is fine, and seems to take sharp pictures if you have it focused just right. The live view LCD screen is a god-sent, I have no idea why everyone hates it; I'm always using it! You can see how bright or dark your picture will turn out (but it won't show it exactly if it's too dark or too bright etc), where your focus is (you can zoom in 10 times to see if you focused correctly, which is awesome), and you don't have to look through that tiny viewfinder. Screw viewfinders, LCD screen all the way. I have almost nothing to complain about liveview, except it has a lot of trouble trying to display the focus when it's dark. In fact, I find it impossible to manually focus during the night, and I have to rely on auto focus ... which isn't that great in low light situations.

Anyways, the camera works and I got what I wanted. There is one thing that bugs the hell out of me though; hot pixels, or 'stuck pixels'. If you leave the camera on for too long, or you are taking long exposure shots, you WILL get random pixels on your pictures that stand out like a sore thumb. The longer the exposure, the more pixels you get. I mainly use my camera for studio shots, which means I have the camera on for like at least 2 hours. Eventually random pixels that are pure white or yellow will show up in the final picture. I figured it wasn't that bad, it just means I can't leave my camera on for too long. Unfortunately, they have also shown up at random when the camera was JUST turned on after being off for a week. Seeing as I see no one else with this problem, I'm assuming it's because I've used the camera a lot and it's aging, or I just happened to have gotten a bad camera. Even so, it's an issue future E-510 owners should know; hot pixels are a problem with this camera.

The camera is actually really bad in low light settings. It can't focus worth a damn when it's dark, so don't even try. Which means you have to do it manually, which isn't that great either on the live-view, so try the viewfinder instead. Flash sucks, as with all DSLR on-board flash, but I find that the ISO really isn't that bad. Just turn on the noise-reduction in-camera and put the ISO up to 800. You can see some noise at 800, but at least you can take in-door shots for your family without using flash. At night 800 is fine too. At 400 ISO you can't really tell if there is any noise, but you might sometimes see it in the shadows. 1600 should be done for snapshots, as it will get grainy and noisy. Either way, I'd rather use ISO than the flash.

While it seems I think this is a bad camera, I am only mentioning its shortcomings and faults. It's a good camera for me to use, however I could have done without the hot pixels problem. The camera is good for me, because it's compact, small, light to carry around, has live view, two lenses, a sensor dust cleaner and the picture quality is just fine. There's also image stabilization in camera, but I haven't seen it make a difference ... at all.

If you think you'll do a lot of night shots, don't buy this camera. If you're going to use auto focus all the time, don't buy this camera. If you're really afraid of those random pixels appearing on your images, don't buy this camera (although they're not that hard to edit out). However, if you are looking for something that works great manually, has a live-view screen and the picture quality is good, go ahead and buy this one!

I give this camera a 3.5/5 stars. Would have gotten a 4 if it wasn't for the hot pixels problem.