In addition to the Olympus E-410, another entry level DSLR camera was introduced by Olympus – the Olympus E-510. While the Olympus E-410 may be just a straightforward upgrade of the Olympus E-400, the Olympus E-510 is a much bigger step forward compared to the Olympus E-500. Nevertheless, both the Olympus E-410 and the Olympus E-510 are much more similar than their predecessors were.

While the Olympus E-410 is a great camera for those who want the best possible image quality straight out of the camera, it's definitely not the best camera for creative use. For those who want to get creative, Olympus made the Olympus E-510. The grip is much deeper, making holding it easier, more buttons mean less time lost in the menu system, and in addition to supersonic dust removal and live image preview, the camera has sensor-based image stabilisation. This makes the Olympus E-510 the only entry-level camera with these three features, which are both a good selling point and a really useful thing, too.

There are several differences between the Olympus E-510 and the Olympus E-410 – first of all, the Olympus E-510 is 6.5 mm wider. Also, a grip has been added, making the camera 15 mm deeper. This makes holding the camera much easier.

The other difference is also immediately noticeable – that's image stabilisation, a first for Olympus DSLRs. Image stabilisation, especially sensor-based image stabilisation, has proven very useful. The third difference, which is not noticeable so quickly, is more buttons, which means less fiddling with the menus.

It's time for the first (partial) conclusion. If the Olympus E-410 is too tiny for your fingers and you need more creative input, the Olympus E-510 is your camera. In addition to that, the image stabilisation system makes it easier to get a steady shot at long focal lengths. This makes the Olympus E-510 very competitive compared to Canon 400D (Rebel XTi), Nikon D40x and Sony Alpha 100. (See our comparison here) It did, however, keep one of the major selling points of the Olympus E-410 – it produces really lovely pictures straight out of the camera.

This is an important point. Most first time DSLR buyers are terribly disappointed when their cameras produce results that are unsharp and somewhat bland. For that reason, get to know your camera. Don't keep it on Auto all the time. In most cases, you won't even get access to all settings in that mode. The same goes for image quality. You need to know the basics about setting aperture and shutter time to get the kind of shot you want. And when you're done with that, you have to process the image on your computer. There's no such thing as an unprocessed image, there's just good and bad processing.

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