Olympus E500 vs. Canon 350D

[shawn_hinskey]

I am new to the whole SLR thing. I have messed around with some Nikon D1 and

D2X but never anything else. The place I worked had the Nikons. I am looking

for a good camera with an affordable price tag to do some weddings, and

possibly to start doing some studio portriats. I also like to do alot of nature

shots as well as live concert photography. From what research I have done it

seems as if the Canon 350D and the Olympus E500 are probably my best two

options. Am I corect? Ive been told that the Nikon accesories can get

expensive. And this is part of what I am looking to take into consideration. Is

there aftermarket products (lens,flash, etc)regularly available for the camera

I am going to get. Also I have talked to a person or two about lenses and I

have been told the lenses the E500 comes with are little too wide to use for

wedding photography. The E500 comes with the 14-45 and the 40-150 lens...the

Canon I am looking at would come with a 28-80 and a 75-300 lens. Like I said,

Im all new to this, and any advice would be great. Im still new to the

technology, terms, and mechanics of photography. But thats why Im looking for a

starter not a D1, or D2...lol. Thanks.

[sam_thompson2]

Olympus lenses and accessories are much more expensive than any Nikon offerings.

 

The person who told you that the lens is too wide is not correct. For wedding photography you want a lens that is wider for group shots.

 

The Olympus would have a 28mm equiv and the Canon would have a 45mm equiv.

 

The E500 with its smaller sensor size is not that good for your purposes for couple of reasons. Because of it's smaller size it will not do as well in high iso use. Also because of it's smaller size it will not do as well in controlling depth of field. Blurring backgrounds which seems to be popular in wedding photography.

 

If you need to rent a lens of or a flash there isn't much you can rent if you have an Olympus.

 

What you need is a set of fast primes. Fast primes for Olympus are very expensive. Fast primes for a Canon is dirt cheap. Especially for the 50 1.8.

 

For the above reasons given the choices I would go with the Canon.

 

In conclusion I would seriously think about getting the Pentax K100D. Fast primes for a Pentax are cheaper than dirt. If you look on craigslist, people are literally throwing old Pentax K mount cameras and lenses away. Also in camera stabilization is available, with these older manual focus lenses, and so is metering.

 

In concert photography you will probably be using manual focus anyways.

[stormchaser]

I own an E500. I love it. The meter makes things look a bit bright, but it's got an exposure compensation button, and that's the only problem, except for the lenses it comes with. They're great, but when fully zoomed in, they only get 5.6 maximum aperture. In other words, they would suck for dark concerts. However, for nature and studio photography, it's a wonderful camera. It's even got colour equalizations for where you're shooting - even high key and low key portraits.

[ronald_moravec1]

Olympus has three or four grades of lenses, the two you mentioned being the consumer (lowest) grade.

 

OlympusUSA has a chart on their site showing what lens is in which grade.

 

Neither camera is profesional quality. A 30D is the least expensive decent Canon camera. For family or casual use, the 350 is fine and that is the design target. I have considered one myself and will be fine for personel use.

 

While Canon primes are cheap, only the L series which cost more are the best quality.

 

Olympus sensors are too small and when trying to make larger prints the lack of detail will show. It is pretty much like film, bigger is better.

[mark u]

"While Canon primes are cheap, only the L series which cost more are the best quality"

 

This generalisation is not true. Many of Canon's non L primes outdo their L zoom competitors optically - and they are often faster too.

[mike_smith2]

If you envisige printing no bigger than A3, a secondhand good condition Olympus E-1 is a much better camera than the E-500. In MHO useable iso for the E500 is only iso400, for the E-1 with the bigger photosites it is iso800 (ie more latitude for dark churches). The E-1 is a more robust camera, bigger brighter viewfinder and has better Raw file buffer capacity compared to the E500. 12 vs 3 frames - I doubt you will shoot jpeg when you get up and running, Raw is a much better format for "serious" post production work

 

Wedding photography is mainly static so you could mount the older OM 50mm F1.8 lens (with adapter) for a fast portrait prime lens - lets not forget legions of pro wedding photographers used manual focus medium format gear for decades before the advent of DSLRs and they coped OK! - if you find focusing tricky there are 3rd party fresnel screens available for the E-1 as a direct swap, (E-1 has interchangeable screen design so an easy swap, the E500 does not)

 

For nature photography I find the E-1 is a much more capable camera than my E-500 especially with the optional booster grip, I have tried both bodies with a manual focus Nikon AIS 300mm f2.8 lens and Oly E AF lenses (150 F2 and 50-200), and always prefer to use the E-1 over the E-500

 

One thing rarely mentioned is that the Oly E cameras re whisper quiet in operation compared to Canon (or Nikon I would hazaard a guess), so for low intrusive church shots I would guess the Oly-E system is better suited

 

Mike

[bruce levy]

I love the E500. No complaints.

[dick_glaser]

I'm very partial to the Olympus cause, but did you look into the Pentax K10D?

Dick

[GerrySiegel]

For beginning experiments, either SLR system would work. I would look at the faster lenses in the mid range. The 14-54mm and the 50-200mm would be better in speed and range than the Oly kit lenses. And I would not neglect a dedicated flash system, and backup camera body. So crank those items into your cost projection for paid professional work,sir. The names Canon,Olympus,Pentax and Nikon are all good where I live, and it gets down to a feel factor a lot of the time. Also,look around for a used "package" from someone who tried weddings and portraits and decided to sell off and get out...I saw one the other day on another forum.

[gbernabe]

I just purchased an E-500 and took it out today to take family pictures at Universal Studios and here are my initial observations. On a bright day, I had -0.3 exposure compensation dialed in to keep the highlights from blowing out. AF was acceptable outdoors but indoors under dim lighting levels, the AF light assist from the flash kept going off as this was the default setting. I eventually turned this feature off in the menu. Compared to my Nikon D200, the AF was definitely not as good although it seemed to be very accurate once it found its mark. No hunting. Build is solid but plasticky. The only annoying aspect of the build is that while holding the camera, the area under the AE lock button, if squeezed down, makes some noise as well as the the area under the base of the thumb that sits on the flimsy compact flash card door. As for the results, I pretty much shot in RAW the whole day and I'm generally pleased with the results. I used ISO 800 indoors without a flash to see what noise is like and saw a bit of chroma noise that when removed left acceptable grain (luminance) like noise. I use Bibble for RAW conversion. As for the lenses, I was surprised by the 40-150mm quality from wide open. The 14-45mm is ok. I picked up the body and 14-45 lens from Cameta Auctions on Ebay for $380 and the 40-150 for $100 from a private seller and the reason I bought into Olympus is simply to be able to use the Leica 25mm f1.4 that's coming out. I used to own an E-1 that I regretfully sold a few years back and other than the superior build it has over the E-500, I actually think the E-500 is a better camera overall so far.

 

George