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Good learner camera, but noisy over ISO 100
By: Nate
September 6, 2009 @ 7:17 PM
I have owned a 510 for nearly 3 years and I have been quite satisfied with it. But now that I really know how to use it I can see its flaws. As a newbie I used auto settings which worked fine outdoors but were quite unacceptable indoors. If you learn the Manual or Aperture Priority modes, you can get quality results, but don’t adjust the ISO to 200 or more unless you are absolutely desperate. I intend to upgrade to a DSLR soon, but for the last 3 years the 510 has been a reliable compact with great battery life and adequate sharpness and color accuracy for my needs.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
A good camera to learn on
By: David
June 30, 2008 @ 3:27 PM
General summary:
I bought this camera so I could start to see if it would be worth the time and money to invest the money and time into a DSLR. The short answer is this camera definitely helped me get there.
To the Point and Shoot Crowd:
If you want to just point and shoot and get great pictures, this is not the camera for you. All of the auto settings will jack up the ISO, even in full bright day light. You will get tons of noise, to the point that you will suddenly become an impressionist painter. The colors tend to be washed, and the light sensor thinks that all photos must be bright to be good.
For the pro-consumer:
This is a great camera to learn about aperture, shutter speed, ISO settings, and to transition into getting a pro camera.
Set the thing to Manual and never look back. Spend lots of time tinkering with settings, experimenting with lighting, color, and you will learn that in fact this is a very capable camera. The learning curve will be a bit steep, but well worth it.
You have to get over the fact that you will need to take several shots to get “just the right picture”, but you will be happy with the result. Also, don’t be afraid of the flash. You can do a lot with the ambient light if you have a steady hand, and that’s really wonderful, but the flash is just fine indoors (and even outdoors)
General conclusion:
I am happy with this camera, but it is a love hate relationship. That being said, it has made me a better photographer, and has more than earned its keep. I’ve taken probably three thousand photos with it, with a .333 batting average (if you know what I mean)
Battery life is good, but it takes four freaking’ AA batteries, so it should have a long life.
If you really want to move forward in your photography this won’t be your last camera, but you will love it. Like an endearing wealthy Mother-in-law that wrote you into her will for weeding her garden.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Selling on Olympus name but camera made very cheaply
By: Andrew Field
May 5, 2008 @ 2:30 PM
Feel cheated poor quality camera over priced xd card internal memory poor does not even have rechargable battry olympus try and get you to subscribe to their magazine via coupon in box also want you to purchase extra softwear to work with computer this camera softwear also in conflict with other programs witch came with my camera phone and photo softwear with my scanner (again poor) camera is over priced looks and feals cheap the battry dont last long and the battry flap on camera feable the usb lead from camera also difficult to attach overall dont buy over priced paying for name but build quality and photo quality poor cameras that are cheaper come with better features quality rechargable battries and memory pictures are yellowish do not buy sorry to sound negative but was purchased by girlfreind because man in shop said good camera? shop would not let item be returned warning to other people looking for cameras do your home work camera at aldi supermarket better value or pay little more and get memory and rechargable battries and softwear dont buy olympus try hitachi ,soney ,richo
hope this helps some one from same mistake do not buy olympus
Rating: 1 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Use M and A/S for better quality
By: Dhaval
April 28, 2008 @ 1:09 PM
Hello, I experienced that It is very important to understand and learn its Manual adjustments of Aperture (Focus), Shutter speed and Exposure.
This will enhance the picture quality too much higher level than the Auto mode even in night or even under flouroscent lights.
Olympus gives superb result and it has almost all the features for addicts of photography.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Excellent
By: Chris Russell
March 4, 2008 @ 10:11 AM
I bought a second hand sp-510uz for a massive ã76.01 and I am extremely happy with this camera, it has all you need for good quality pictures and TV quality video recording, I found a noise reduction button on my 510 and switched it on, all my pictures have been very sharp, full of color, I have also had no problems with focus…for me this camera, and the second hand price of ã76.01 is money well spent, I rate this camera 100%.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Noise reduction
By: Dakota
October 29, 2007 @ 12:02 PM
Please, read this…it´s about noisy pictures! I´ve just arrived home from my night-biking-journey! And…What about my pictures? I´ve put it into my computer…and they look…terrible!! BUT WAIT!! I´ve compared these pictures with pictures from my old Olympus (D-390)…they look (night-scene pictures) much better!! I didn´t understand it, how can newer camera take picture with lower quality than 5years old model?! I find out! YES! It´s due to that (stupid) picture stabilization! It doesn´t work in night/dark scenes! Really!! Please, if you are using this camera, remember – turn off hand-shaking function! Or it will do mess to taken picture! Check it out alone…and you will see the difference! Now I’m fully satisfied with this camera…good quality/good price…really! (But sure: I’m not PRO!) In other words: not perfect, but much better than average! :-) For me, it´s 9/10!
Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Better than Canon S3
By: Ratnakar
October 7, 2007 @ 6:08 PM
Im sorry for CANON fans, but I have found this camera to be a bit extra precise and better than the Canon S3 model. My roommate has the S3 and I have this beautiful Olympus model….no doubt my roommate himself agrees that Olympus is much better.
I advise you to blindly buy this model from olympus.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Good all around camer for the beginner
By: Bill B.
October 4, 2007 @ 4:51 PM
I purchased the 510 in June, I like the feel of the camera, and I can’t work with those cigarette pack sizes. The batteries seemed to last forever, I have replaced them once. My biggest complaint is the blurred pictures with very little movement; maybe I’m not using the right setting? The zoom is great. Overall I’m quite satisfied with it.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Excellent all- around camera
By: zorawar godara
September 2, 2007 @ 10:36 PM
Bought 510 and enjoying every moment of it in all the situations.
Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Problem with sharpness
By: Dino
June 19, 2007 @ 9:46 AM
I bought this camera about 3 months ago and I have been collecting the most information I can about it, but I still have a problem with sharpness. No mather wich mode I use, the sharpness is not good.
Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Thoroughly likeable camera
By: Paul Mac
June 19, 2007 @ 9:46 AM
If Olympus was GM, this would be a Buick rather than a Cadillac but you simply won’t get a better camera for the money than the SP-510UZ. I just don’t understand some of the negative comments posted. When it comes to image & color quality, similar cameras like the Fuji S5700 don’t even get close to the 510. The guy who wrote off the DIS obviously hasn’t discovered how to turn it on! – It works very well. My only gripe is that there is a fair bit of shutter lag, but with a little practice, you will still get some fine action shots.
Rating: 8 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
I bought the sp510uz
By: Edwin
June 17, 2007 @ 9:27 PM
Yes I bought it. For a newbie im pretty impressed with the design that makes you look professional and the scene modes that you can choose, made it easier to use and the battery that I am using wont run out (2700 amp) when I needed it… but somehow I cant see how to maximize the use of it and also to use all its function to know if i really bought the right one.
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Very easy to use & great picture quality for the price range.
By: Aimee
June 1, 2007 @ 3:35 PM
I bought this camera a week ago taken over 400 pics so far all of which have come out in a really good qaulity, no blurriness. Would definately recommend as a beginners camera
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
For manual shutting only
By: Mykola Ukraine
May 18, 2007 @ 11:49 AM
Good camera, the price/quality ratio is exellent. But only for manual shooting. Automatic modes of operation are imperfect. The Digital Image Stabilization is a marketing trick only.
Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Irritating moments
By: Sanjeev MS
May 14, 2007 @ 7:10 PM
Brought an Olympus 510UZ which is thoroughly disappointing. Got irritated with its focus and never got to take one single picture with clarity. Almost all the pix came with blurred quality and had tough time in focusing sharp objects. Problem is when you focus on a particular object, it looks right on target but when you view it in your PC(After downloading), it is all over the place, rattled and blurred! God help me!
Rating: 4 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
very enjoyable
By: Art
April 15, 2007 @ 8:05 PM
Sure there are better cameras BUT for a minimal price you get a single lense reflex where the view finder is looking thru the lens, (besides, as with all digitals, the screen on the back is a SLR but alot of cheap digitals don’t have SLR thru their view finders) and the compactness for a super 10X optical is super and with only a 512 card I get over 2 minutes of very fine video. Easy to transport without exta carry bags and the lens is intercangable which I haven’t looked into yet, but that is also a great feature for a less expensive camera!
Rating: 10 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
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By: CamGuy
December 12, 2006 @ 2:51 AM
I would suggest putting in more money in buying a D-SLR. Prosumers make no sense as they are too expensive for what they deliver and give little choice of zoom. If you want to stick with Olympus, which I would never do (’cause I own a Olympus) you could get 1000mm(35mm) zoom telephoto lenses.Do not buy any prosumer if you don’t want to by a compact camera, Buy a D-SLR (I would suggest Nikon).
Rating: 6 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
I agree, too much noise!
By: Matt
December 6, 2006 @ 11:42 PM
I bought this camera today and played around with it. When in Auto mode the pictures have a lot of noise. I have a Fuji Finepix S5000 (about 4 years old now) and the picture quality is far better than the Olympus SP-510UZ.
Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No
Tons of Noise!
By: Kat
November 8, 2006 @ 9:50 PM
I just bought this camera and it is not a good buy! The image quality is sub-par. This image stabilizer they rave about only adds more noise (white specks) to an already unclear picture. Under no circumstances should you buy this camera! Go with a Canon or Sony. The extra $$ is worth it.
Rating: 5 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No