New Here with Questions

Hello,
My name is Katie and I have the Olympus E 500. I have had it for about 4 months now and so far I am pretty happy. This is my first SLR and I am slowly learning photography. There is so much to learn on this camera and sometimes I feel very overwhelmed. I really do not feel the manuel is that great at explaining things. But I am also a more hands on person so if I had someone to show me instead of just exlpain then I could probably learn faster. But I am hoping that coming on here I will be able to learn more from everyday people who will probably explain in it better then a book.

So I do have a few questions.
First I was reading in my manual that this camera offers different program modes such as SS mode, Apeture mode, program mode, etc. In the manual it also say high key and low key mode and snow mode, but I do not have that on my camera as far as I can tell. Do you know if this is correct?

Second, Can you only use Zuiko lens for the E 500? One thing I have noticed is that it seems the lens are more expensive then Canon/Nikon. I was wanting to get a macro lens but the cheapest I have found is like 400 bucks.

I have the kit lens which seem to work fine but does anyone know what lens would work best for taking indoor potraits of children/babies. I would love to be able to get in close. I do not have that much room in my house and with the kit lens I think I have to be about 4 feet away from the subject in order for it to focus. Anyone have any good lens recommendations.

Well I am sure I will be back with more questions. I am so glad to have found a place wehre there are other Olympus usuers. I look forward to learning from everyone.

Oh one more questions, what is all the talk about filmware upgrades? Is this something I should look into and if so where?

Sorry for so many questions, like I said this is pretty brand new to me.

Thank you,
Katie

First, yes, the manual is not that great, but if you go to

http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/oly-e/e500-using.html

this web site is very very good at explaining the missing pieces of the manual. To answer your questions...

1. Yes, you can set to low and high key. snow modes is scene 15 (listed as Beach and Snow) when you have the camera set to scene mode. high key and low key can be accessed from scenes 8 and 9, but you can also get it from the menu under gradation.

2. No, you can use other Olympus lenses, but since the E-500 is completely digital the OM lenses won't "speak" to the camera and you'll have to do things manually. also, you have to buy an adaptor ring to fit between the lense and the camera body. That's about $100 bucks by itself. B&H has the 35 mm macro 4/3rd's lense for $200. the 50mm is about $400 though.

3. You say you have the kit lense. The basic kit lense is the 14-45mm. Or the 17.5-45 depending on where you got it. I have the 14-45 and the minimum distance from subject is 1.9 feet.The minimum distance for the extra kit lense, the 40-150mm is 4 feet. I've taken some great shots with the 14-45. Some macro shots too. Even with the telephoto i've taken some macro shots by controlling the depth of field.

4. Firmware, not filmware, is what is used to update the operating system of the camera. Your kit came with Olympus Master. When you hook your camera up to the computer through the usb, start the software and in the bottom right corner, you'll see an icon for update camera. You should do this and the software will also update the lenses that are attached as well.

Hope this helps

3.

^^^

What he said =)

The E500 was also my first real SLR camera. I played around with a film camera but I had no tools to see if I was improving as a photographer. I found the E500 very usefull for learning the tricks of Aperture and Shutters for controling exposure. What I did was set the camera on Shutter priority and then take a bunch of pictures. Review the histogram and the settings that the camera shot the rest in and take notes.

(Low light - the camera chose ISO 400 and F5.0 when I set the shutter to 1/60, etc, etc)

Then I switched to Aperture priority and set the apertures while the camera set everything else and again reviewed the settings the camera chose to compliment my choices. Then after all that I went to full manual mode and I have never looked back.

Learning exposures is learning photography truth be told. Once you have those tools under your belt, your creative eye will do the rest.

Welcome to PR and to our growing 4/3 forum and looking forward to seeing what you shoot.

Jae

Thank you so much for this information. It has all come in very handy so far. Thank you for the other article. Much better then the manual. I am hoping to get some pictures this weekend and then I can post and see what everyone thinks I can do differently.

if you only have 4 feet to focus and you want to shoot portraits then the 14-45 will do just fine. ive shot for a year with that lens without getting a new one and it never seems to under perform. for someone whos starting out i wouldnt reccomend investing so much money into it because it can all add up thats for sure haha