Very capable E-500
The E-500 has been a great camera for me overall. It is easy to use and controls are well placed. It is of comfortable size and fairly light in weight even with a zoom lens on. While the camera is light in weight the materials used do not feel cheap and it fits well in your hand(I have big hands) while in use. Auto focus works well in the conditions I have used it. Images are well exposed and color reproduction has been very realistic. 8 MP is fine for my uses and the "truth be told" enough for most people. Battery life has been excellent as well. Cons-doesn't have Live view and the view finder is on the on the smallish side.

Classic 35mm SLR Design In A Digital Camera
Without a doubt this was a hefty camera to deal with in terms of price.I was looking to replace my first digital camera which was an Aiptek DV4500 4MP MPEG4 Pocket Digital Camcorder,more of a swiss army knife digital camera/camcorder/voice recorder thingy-more of a toy then a functional device.Finally one day,it just fell apart basically.So in some haste I replaced it with....this.I found myself with a large money surplus and decided that if I were to invest a lot of money in a new digital camera,I wanted one that had similar functions to the Pentax K1000,[USED] P30T, 05520, 35mm Cameras and Ricoh KR-5 manual 35mm SLR's I'd been using along with comperable if not better image quality. When I first took this camera out of the box I found it more then a little intimidating.The instruction manual is the size of a small novel (presented in three languages) and frankly....three years after purchasing the camera I still haven't learned every single little thing about it. Digital SLR's are a very very different animal from what I'd been used to. After you insert your flash memory card your off to the races and all you have to do is....figure out all the complex technicalities of SLR photography. Of course with a few days practice you will get incredible photographs with this,especially if you had a lot of knowledge beforehand about photography as I did.At present there are 12 megapixel cameras out there but,even now the resolution on this 8 megapixel model is absolutely stunning. It's definately a professional camera and has all kinds of sophisticated features.One of my favorites on this is the motor drive.It's a bit tough to use this setting with the built in flash but in proper conditions it is an excellent feature for any kind of action photography.This camera also has a number of amazing lighting and and picture options.You can choose from a number of ISO speeds but,of course keep in mind that as with 35MM the higher an ISO speed you choose,the coarser and grainer the finished product is likely to appear,especially when printed on huge paper. But this camera does offer all the great features of a semi-automatic 35 mm SLR and two excellent lenses.One word of note:you'll probably require a longer range flash attachment for the 80-200 telephoto zoom lens included but in terms of outdoor work it really does bring in far images closer and clearer,with not too bad f-stops too.Other great lighting features are a handful of flash options,even for outdoor "fill" flash use and even on the automatic setting the use of exposure compensation to lighten or darken your general image. There is a manual setting which allows you full control but even I admit I rarely use it:the manual shutter/F-stop settings are controlled with tiny buttons that are hard to sync up and,while a built in light meter is included for this situation it's somewhat more time consuming.So recommended setting on this camera for the impatient subject?From my experience that would be the auto close up (or portrait) setting with the motor drive swiched on,with the use of flash indoors or natural light outside for the best effect.So with a little practice with it's complex modes and a little time this camera will delivery the best pictures you can probably imagine.

My-Mode for HDR, and Silver body to keep it cool in the sun!
The my-mode button helps in HDR by allowing to recall a user defined setting of, for example aperture and exposure time in manual mode. This allows HDR with more than the built-in factor 4.

Other notes: The silver housing seems excellent, and it keeps very much cooler in the Florida sun, which reduces sensor noise. Do you know, a black surface in the Florida sun can get so hot, you can't touch it anymore? Silver however does not even get warm! The black housing however seems to have another problem, a very severe surface texture-rub-off problem. I judge this by only seeing one used black E500, which had 20k shots on it, and the housing surface looked very ugly in places where fingers touch often. I have a E300 with over 20k shots on it, and it still looks like brand new. There seems to be a problem with the black E500 housing surface. But, this is judged only by seeing just one used E500 in black. Anyway, I prefer silver in order to keep it cooler in the sun.

Love it!
Prior to this camera I was shooting with a Olympus 7070 which I still have and use but compared to this camera there is no comparison. I haven't learned all the inter workings of the camera but I have taken it with me to many locations and it takes great pictures.

There was not a big learning curve, but I am seeking to get better buy reading there blog which is very informative.

Great Camera and better experience
Even at four years old this camera takes great pictures. Yet it still has all the functions a pro photog needs. I'm really happy with the purchase.