Olympus e500 or Canon 350d

King Eric

Hey guys debating betweeen the two of these cameras
Olympus e500 or Canon 350d

The olympus comes with 2 lens 14 to 45 and 40 to 150 afaik
and with a 1 Gb card will cost me 1100

The canon has a 18 to 55 mm lens and im thinkin about getting a 90 to 300mm lens too

the canon and the lens with a 1Gb card will cost me 1279

Anyone got any opinions on which i should go for?

Im not looking for cheaper prices on the internet etc. i dont have a credit card and id rather be able to bring it back to a shop if it goes kaboom

If im buying it'll almost definately be in Conns, there back up service seems to be very good and he'll clean dust for free etc.

I shoot mainly gigs, a bit of portrait work and a fair bit of sports/paddling/surfing
at the moment i have a fuji s5500 which doesnt give me everything i want

also anyone know if my xd cards will work in the canon camera with a xd to compact flash adaptor?

Thanks in advance

Beano

I have a 350D so I might be slightly biased but I see the drawbacks of the E500 as follows :

The scaling factor on the lenses is 2x as opposed to 1.6x for the canon. Getting real wideangle shots will be more difficult.
No portrait grip available for the E500. I love the portrait grip on the canon and couldnt live without it. If you are doing concert photography then a portrait grip might be useful
Availability of lenses. The world and his mother make canon-compatible lenses. I'm not sure the same is true for the Olympus 4/3 lenses.

As for the xD card I know the xD to compact flash adaptor works with the fuji S9500 I have so it should work with the canon. I'll check it tonight to make sure.

DotOrg

the range on lenses available for the canon is far far better than the olympus

for gigs and sport, the buffer rate and fps rate are very important, doe sth olympus compare to the canon for these?

Beano

I checked over the weekend and xD cards do work in the adaptor

sflinter

The general consensus from most websites now is that ALL modern DSLRs will take excellent pictures, and unless you're a pro or a very good amateur, you won't notice much difference in picture quality.

I think that the real thing you're buying when you buy into an SLR system (and it is a system rather than a camera body) are things like the number and availability of accessories, particularly lenses, the availability of support, the likehood of the company staying in the camera business, etc. The last point shouldn't be underestimated, given that the smaller volume makers are finding it increasingly difficult to survive, and that Konica have recently pulled out of the digital camera market.

All of this means, in my opinion, that there's only two brands worth considering when buying a DSLR: Canon or Nikon. Those two between them own the vast majority of the market, have plenty of lenses and other accessories, are well supported and have dealers in every city in the world, probably.

Which one you do for is entirely a matter of choice. For me, I'd go for the Canon, but the Nikon D50 and D70 have plenty of admirers also. FYI, I shoot a Canon 20D, having upgraded from a 300D recently.

King Eric

Thanks a million guys for the advice, and for taking the time to reply,i really appreciate it,

think im gonna go with the canon now, if i can get the funds together,

just wondering Beano if the xd to compact flasha daptor will work with 512MB
cards, saw it on a website and it just said that it was compatible with xd cards 16 to 256 MB

i think i might go for a diffferent lens with a bigger range to start off instead of the 90 to 300mm more like a 55 to 200mm

In one shop i was in the guy said that it was bad idea to get a lens that covered a wide range as it allowed less light into the camera because the "tunnel" it had to travel through was longer, but is this a pro talking or starting out will this make much diference to me

bearing in mind that i can only afford to spend €300 max on the lens at the moment

also is there a big diference between sigma and canon lenses?

Cheers

DotOrg

King Eric wrote:

In one shop i was in the guy said that it was bad idea to get a lens that covered a wide range as it allowed less light into the camera because the "tunnel" it had to travel through was longer, but is this a pro talking or starting out will this make much diference to me

that is true but at such a low budget for a lens you don't have that many options

cianclarke

As usual when i get to these threads it's all been said, so I'll just add another vote for Canon.

Beano

I only tried the compact flash adaptor with a 16MB card. I'll try it with a 1GB card tonight and report back tomorrow.

King Eric

Any luck Beano trying the adaptor with a bigger card?

Beano

Sorry mate, forgot to try it. I'll do it tonight and report back.

Beano

I tried the 1GB xD card last night with the adaptor and it worked fine.

rymus

I'm wondering would there be any issues with using a cf adaptor instead of a cf card? Like are there any transfer speed limitations with an adaptor that a good cf card (like a Sandisk Ultra for example) might not have.

Would a Sandisk Ultra xD card in a CF adaptor be capable of reading & writing at the same speed as a Sandisk Ultra CF card? Anyone?

Beano

when I tried the adaptor with the 1GB card last night I did notice that the burst speed was slower than using just a CF card

King Eric

Thanks a mil Beano for checking that out