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Good old DPReview has come through for us yet again, this time with a review of the Olympus EVOLT E-510. Let’s see what they have to say about it.

First off, the reviewer loves the ergonomics. It’s a small camera (larger than the E-410, very similar in size to the Digital Rebel XTi) but the review says it feels balanced, comfortable, and “right.” As with the Panasonic L10, the E-510 uses the “Supersonic Wave Filter” (SSWF) dust removal system, which still seems to be the best one out there. The review points out that this triggers every time you turn on the camera, and can’t be disabled, meaning you have a delay when you turn the camera on that you can’t get around.

The ISO noise test images in the review are a little confusing. The Canon images look more detailed than the E-510 images, even at 100 ISO. At higher ISOs the difference is very pronounced, and the review points it out as noise reduction. My first time reading the review I was baffled by the blurred ISO 100 images and didn’t understand why the review wasn’t discussing them. Luckily they get to that on the following pages. Here’s what the review has to say about the noise performance:

From a noise point of view there’s little difference between these three ten megapixel digital SLRs up to ISO 400. At ISO 800 and 1600 the E-510 has the cleanest looking gray and black patches although this is clearly at the expense of detail lost to noise reduction, especially at ISO 1600. The noisiest ‘flat area’ patches come from the Nikon D40X although it doesn’t ‘smear’ as much detail at ISO 1600. From an overall performance point of view the Canon EOS 400D (Rebel XTi) with its CMOS sensor once more delivers the best compromise between noise and detail.

Apparently at ISO 100 the E-510 is still trying to do noise reduction, when there isn’t really any need for it. If you turn off the “Noise Filter” (and turn down sharpening, since it’s still trying to sharpen the blurry noise-reduced image) you get far more detail than with the standard settings. That’s a little strange, you’d think Olympus could set everything up right to give you good detail at ISO 100. In a way the camera seems to be optimized for higher ISO shooting (although, as the review points out, you’re still getting a lot of noise reduction at those levels.)

In fact, you can’t even turn off the noise filter all the way at ISO 1600; you can turn it to a lower level, but you’re still getting significant noise reduction and smearing of details. I’d always prefer that camera manufacturers leave settings like that up to the photographer and not try to second guess them (after all, you can always do better NR in Photoshop afterwards than in the camera.)

DPReview points out the noise reduction further in their discussion on image quality, which they’re not too excited about:

Our overall impressions of the E-510′s image quality are, unsurprisingly, pretty much exactly the same as they were when we tested the E-410; rather mixed. This is mainly due to the default settings, which produce very smooth (noise free) images, but images that lack critical detail. For many users the rather contrasty tone curve and bright, cheerful colors might produce images that are a little too ‘punchy’, but they always have the option to shoot RAW (the in-camera JPEG image parameters don’t offer enough range to really customize the output sufficiently).

Turning the noise filter off (and turning the sharpening down) produces superb results at lower ISO settings, but noise starts to rear its ugly head at ISO 400, something that — along with the limited dynamic range (and resultant highlight clipping) is almost certainly a direct consequence of the smaller sensor surface area.

The reviewer says that the limited dynamic range (0.7 EV less than the 400D or D40X, although similar to the Pentax K10D) is his biggest issue with the camera. He also calls the metering “erratic,” pointing out that that’s not really want you want to see when your dynamic range is limited to begin with:

The consequences are clipped highlights, particularly on bright, contrasty days when the only way to ensure you don’t lose highlight detail is through very careful exposure/metering (the metering tends to over exposure when faced with too much dynamic range). Shooting RAW with a -0.7 EV compensation significantly increases your chances of capturing the full range of tones in the scene, but you’ll eventually hit the dynamic range wall — and you can’t put back what was never captured.

Be sure to check out their samples comparing noise reduction settings. The difference is pretty amazing. It was big enough that they did their sample photo comparison between the E-510′s defaults, the E-510 with their improved settings, and then with other cameras, something I’ve never noticed them do before.

With all that said, the review concludes stating that the overall impression of the E-510 was “very positive.” On the good side, the image stabilization is good, handling is excellent, the kit lens is good, the SSWF dust reduction system is good. For all the negatives, the camera still comes out highly recommended:

If it had a better sensor (less noise and better dynamic range) the E-510 would be a strong candidate for category winner; as it is you’ll need to decide if the slight compromises the sensor demands are going to affect the type of pictures you take.

As always with DPReview, there’s a lot more detail in the full review, as well as full resolution sample photos, and is well worth checking out.

The Online Photographer has a list of the top 10 camera recommendations for fall 2007. Six of the ten are DSLRs, along with one digital point-and-shoot, two 35mm film cameras, and the Phase One P45+ medium format digital back.

The DSLRs that made the top ten are — in order listed on the site, though it’s not clear if that’s an actual ranked order or not — the Pentax K10D (“pretty much the camera with the mostest at the moment for the serious amateur and artist”), the Nikon D80 (“the D80 really feels right — a sort of baby-bear camera”), the Canon 5D (“the 5D provides exactly what many art and landscape photographers most need”), the Olympus E-510 (“the most feature-laden of the amateur DSLRs”), the Fuji S5 (“high dynamic range and very accurate color, and this makes it the #1 choice for the most numerous type of professionals and semi professionals, namely, wedding and portrait photographers”), and the Canon 1D Mark III (“simply a technological wonderment and a superb piece of engineering and design”).

The article also mentions a few other cameras in passing (e.g., the Nikon D3 as upcoming competition for the 1DMkIII), and is a good read overall (as The Online Photographer always is). You should click that link up top and read it all for yourself.

In case you haven’t seen enough Olympus E-510 reviews over the past few weeks, CNET has one up now that might just be the review to push you over the edge.

They give it a 7.1 out of 10, taking off points for slow autofocus, poor automatic exposure performance, weird white balance results, and default setting that they disagree with.

Some mixed comments on the Live View implementation:

As Live View modes in SLRs go, the 510′s version is pretty nice, but it’s still clunkier than shooting with a real compact camera or using the 510′s optical viewfinder. Since the 510 has to get its mirror out of the way before you can use Live View, then needs to lower it to autofocus and raise it again before you can shoot, this mode is slow and noisy. Also, if you do want the camera to autofocus while in Live View mode, you have to hold the AEL/AFL button to activate it, which also slows down the shooting experience. However, if you want to focus manually, you can zoom in on your subject to help you focus. You can also select the area that you want to zoom in on or use for autofocus; a small green box appears if you cycle through display modes (with the INFO button) and you can move it around the frame with the direction buttons in the 5-way touchpad.

Their complaints about the default settings are the same excessive noise reduction complaints that every other review seems to mention as well:

While you can achieve very nice image quality with the Evolt E-510, out of the box I saw the same issues with the E-510 that Lori Grunin saw with the Evolt E-410. In its default settings, and with Firmware version 1.0, the E-510 underexposes and overblurs photos. Switching the Noise Filter to Low or Off will fix the blurring problem, and using a shooting mode other than Program can help overcome the exposure issues.

Their conclusion is also kind of mixed, fitting for the 7.1 rating and the handful of negatives that they brought up in the review:

While the exposure quirks mentioned above might sound bad, you really can create very good photos with the Evolt E-510, though it can be a bit frustrating when compared to competitors, such as Canon’s EOS Rebel XTi or Nikon’s D40x. However, if you like the idea of this Evolt’s Live View mode or built-in Image Stabilization (something neither of the aforementioned competitors have), then you should give the E-510 a look.

Be sure to check out the full review for all sorts of E-510 reviewy goodness, as well as some low resolution sample photos taken at the U.S. Open. At least that’s something unique, rather than studio test shots and resolution charts, even if the resolution is far too low to be able to tell anything about the E-510′s image quality from them.

Digital Trends has posted a review of the Olympus E-510 digital SLR camera.

One of my concerns about the camera when I initially read some of the details was the fact that the anti-dust system does its thing when you turn the camera on, which is going to slow down the camera’s startup, minimizing one of the big advantages to a DSLR, the instant turn on time. According to this review, the delay is “slight” but “well worth it.”

This review is also the most negative one about Live View:

It dramatically slows the camera down and images on the LCD screen are a smeary mess (because of poor refresh rates). Auto focus takes a long time and the camera makes a loud clunk every time you snap a shot. I know the Live View is supposed to give you additional shooting angle options but I’d rather crane my neck to use the viewfinder instead of the LCD screen. Olympus does say Live View is best used with stationary objects but I don’t get what the hype is all about. Maybe that’s just me — any happy Live View users are welcome to send an email.

Other reviews have pointed out the drawbacks to Live View, but then conclude that it’s still useful to have in certain situations. Digital Trends is the first I’ve seen to say that it’s just not very good, at least in this first generation of DSLR live view sensors. On the other hand, the reviewer does list Live View as both a pro and a con of the camera in the summary, so there you go.

The review concludes that it’s a good camera, though he seems much less impressed by it than some of the other reviews I’ve seen that called it the perfect introductory DSLR camera and were much more blown away by it. He calls the image quality “solid,” and does recommend it for people new to the digital SLR world:

I have no problems recommending the Olympus Evolt E-510 two lens kit for D-SLR newbies or those who don’t have an extensive collection of older lenses. However if you have a collection of glass, go with similar 10MP Canons or Nikons.

As always, read the full review for all the details.