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I was waiting for the UPS truck all day today, and it finally came at 6 PM with my new camera. I was jumping around like a little kid on Christmas, which was probably scary for my roommate and his girlfriend to watch, but I couldn’t help it.

My previous camera was an Olympus E-300, but it was sadly stolen from my (accidentally) unlocked car about a year and a half ago. I never saw it again. Since then I’ve used my dad’s Olympus E-500, and it’s served me very well.

After Olympus released their new model E-510, I was pretty convinced it was the next step for me. It has 10 MP of resolution (not that anyone ever needs that), Sensor-shift Image Stabilization (works with all lenses), and Live View. In addition, it pretty much does away with noise concerns at high ISO, which was a problem with the E-500 and below. In fact, noise at ISO 1600 (the highest sensitivity) looks an awful lot like nice film grain, as you can see in this shot.

It came with two lenses, and while you can get the camera with just the wide-angle 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6, it’d be dumb to pass up a 40-150mm f/4-5.6 (80-300mm in 35mm equivalent terms) telephoto for only $100 more. Both are excellent lenses, despite the fact that they’re a little more plastic than their previous models, and the telephoto is a slightly slower (the clean high-ISO and Image Stabilization makes up for it). They’re sharp, have surprisingly nice bokeh, and are darn small and light (hence the plastic). You’ve never seen a 300mm equivalent telephoto zoom that’s as small as this one. A very portable package all in all.

Other than all that technical stuff, it takes beautiful photos! You can see them above, and if you view the whole post, and in this zenphoto album here. I’m going to Yosemite next week for a family camping trip, and I plan to take lots more. I’ll be sure to post them afterward.