Olympus E-410

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Features
The menu interface design and control layout resembles that of most entry-level dSLRs, with a mode dial split between scene, manual, and semi-manual exposure modes. The Scene selection offers snapshot-like descriptions and thumbnails of all the available scene modes--about 20 in all, including two underwater options.



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An OK button pulls up a screen for changing all your shooting settings, including, oddly, drive/self-timer/remote setting, for which there's already dedicated button. The menu structure and layout differ significantly from Olympus' current crop of snapshot cameras, however, so newbies shouldn't look for any learning-curve shortcuts there.

You can program the left arrow key for one of four functions: Manual white balance, shoot without save, depth-of-field preview, and DOF preview in Live View. In one of the many perplexing default choices, it comes unassigned. It took several readings of the manual to figure out that in order to set the manual white balance, we first needed to program that key.

Beginners and advanced amateurs alike will find the E-410 a fully-featured camera. It can shoot simultaneous raw plus JPEG and allows you to choose white-balance color temperature values between 2,000K and 14,000K, as well as fine-tune along the red-blue and green-magenta axes.

It offers five metering schemes, including two spot-metering variants--HI and SH--which automatically boost or decrease exposure to keep white or black subjects (such as snow or shadows) from rendering as middle gray.

An Anti-Shock setting slows the mirror movement to minimize shake at long shutter speeds. The maximum sensitivity of ISO 1,600 is a bit of a disappointment, but the mere 3-point autofocus more seriously impacts performance.

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