I bought this camera in 2007 with a 2 lens kit for $665. Since I'm using a lighter and less complicated semi-professional camera, I haven't used it in a long time, so I've gone back to classes and have a lot more time to devote to this hobby. There are more than enough reviews here, on Revain, and on the web in general that describe both the camera's disadvantages and its strengths, so I won't repeat all of this information. I really like the pics.RAW transform. Keep in mind that there are some difficulties when shooting in RAW format. RAW files are owned by Olympus and cannot be read by any of the most commonly used image editors, be they free downloads like GIMP or Photoshop. You need to download the Olympus Viewer 3 from the Olympus website and using the OV-3 is a real hassle in my opinion. Problems reading RAW files, problems converting RAW files to TIFF for editing, and problems navigating OV-3 in general. So I found a free program to convert to XnView. I usually take out the memory card and transfer the ORF (Olympus RAW file) to the hard drive via a card reader. Then invoke XnView and convert the ORF files to TIFF files, and voila, GIMP editable TIFF files. Within 15 minutes of downloading and installing the software, I was up and running with XnView. It has batch processing features that I haven't explored yet. OV-3 is removed. Firmware updates for E510. According to the manual, the camera's USB mode should be set to "Storage" and not to "Auto". I downloaded the firmware update installer from the Olympus website and followed the instructions, but my camera was not recognized. The update installation wizard does not mention the required USB mode setting. I called Olympus technical support and they informed me of the necessary USB mode setting. As I said, it's in the manual, but the manual is over 100 pages of fine print, and in the table of contents there's no indication that the USB settings need to be accessed and changed in order to update the firmware. The photos this camera takes as long as you are aware of its limitations like noise at ISO above 400 but the photographic activities can be a bit disappointing hence 4 stars. Update: January 22, 2015 Lightzone is a free RAW processing software. which I found and seems to work great although there is a learning curve. Visit lightzone.org.
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