Olympus Evolt E410 10MP Digital SLR Camera with 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 and 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 Zuiko Lenses

If you're top priority is a small, interchangeable lens digital SLR, then the E-410 should be the place to start. There are none smaller, and the telephoto 40-150 is exceptionally short. It's light weight, and has all the basic features most people want or need in a SLR. It's basic enough for beginners, and featured enough (and good enough image quality) to satisy most advanced amatuers.

However, before you buy, you must understand two things: smaller SLRs and the 4/3rd system.

The smaller SLRs from all brands (Canon XTi, Nikon D40/D40x) have trade-offs. They all use the rear LCD for everything. Combined with the smaller battery for the smaller body, battery performance is not as good as the next size up (E-510, D80, etc.). Additionally, the magnification inside the viewfinder is less, making manual focusing (or seeing fine detail) a bit more difficult.

The 4/3rd system is also new to most people. In an attempt to compete with the well... Read more

I am appreciating this camera more every day. Last weekend I took it to a wedding, and in fact I had the smallest SLR at the entire party. It made it easy for me to carry it and take shots the entire day. Also the battery performance was very good (I took more than 150 pictures and the battery was still far from empty).

I bought this camera for traveling, size and weight was an important consideration and I really like the camera for this. I take it everywhere.

It has all the advantages of an SLR (manual controls, seeing through the lens, interchangeable lenses), with the portability of a compact camera. Your hands should not be too big, if they are you would probably be better off with the e-510.

The 40-150 lens included in the kit is very light and portable and produces some excellent quality shots.
I like the performance of the camera, it has fast startup and excellent shutter performance.

The live view mode as advertised is not that... Read more

I've had this unit a few weeks...and it seems to preform fine...good quality images....I did turn exposure comp to + 1/3 and noise filter to LOW and
Noise Reduct to off....and as far as the 4/3 system...I go to Wolf/Ritz Camera and get their 4 1/2 x 6 in print...it's full frame for 4/3 system..I also have 2 canon 20D's so this is not my 1st slr...I would say this is a great value...and the telephoto lens is very compact