Good to hear from you Gary - do let us know where you are going "out East"
Herewith some thoughts on your questions, based on experience with E-1 and
E-410 (not E-510), together wioth aftermarket focus screens and AF
confirmation chips.
Overall impression of using OM and third party OM mount lenses: Can be done,
but not suited to fast action, because it takes time. There are aftermarket
adaptors available at a fraction of the Olympus MF-1 adaptor, with no
discernible difference. In my experience the adaptors (whether Olympus or
not) tend to be too thin rather than too thick, with the result that the
lenses focus beyond infinity, and the focusing scale is unreliable. This
calls for very sharp eyes (see below) or shimming the adaptor. Shimming is
what I eventually did in order to use an OM-mount 8mm fisheye, which was
otherwise not practical to use - the depth of focus is wide enough to make
manual focussing almost impossible in the viewfinder, yet the focusing error
was all too obvious on the LCD.
The viewfinder: What you see (at 0.92 magnification) is 95% of what the
sensor will record. But if you arew comparing that to what the OM
viewfinder shows you, keep in mind that the VF image is about half the size
of what you are accustomed to (the imager is half the size of 35mm full
frame)! The magnification/brightness could indeed be better when compared to
an OM body, and what you will see in an E-510 is noticeably less width
that's dimmer compared to the OM.
More on viewfinder: There is inbuilt dioptric adjustment which does the job.
More on viewfinder: Manually focusing OM lenses is more than somewhat
difficult, due to a less bright VF, and the absence of any focus aids (split
image prisms and suchlike). For some E-system cameras, split-image screens
are avilable, and they do make the manual focus task easier, but they also
give rise to exposure metering errors, most especially with flash. There
are also focus chips which can be cemented to the OM-E adaptor in order to
trigger the camera focus confirmation circuit which shows an "in-focus" LED
in the viewfinder. In my experience it is hard to work out just what is
deemed to be "in-focus" because the LEDs on the focusing screen do not
illuminate (as they would with an AF lens). It's much better to use the LCD
in live-view, with magnification - but in that case you can focus be eye
anyway.
Sensor cleaning/dust removal: It DOES do its job well, no problems, ever,
with sensor dust.
--
Piers
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Gary Teller
Sent: 06 April 2008 17:41
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] I think the E-510 is the DSLR for me....
Hi all,
Due to too many demands on my time, I've read only a few digests in the last
year and a half. I'm hoping that will change soon. So, if what I'm asking
about the E-510 has already been endlessly discussed write me off list if
you'd rather not rehash the subject in public.
I'd like to hear from anyone who actually uses this camera. An upcoming trip
to Eastern Europe in May (more about that in a separate
post) has got me thinking that maybe I really don't want to take rolls and
rolls of film with me.
--snip
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