Most people like to rave about the kit they buy. Cognitive dissonance! Let's be impartial. I've used the E520 for a month after buying through Amazon. It's a competitive camera in its price range. The compromises are all about the Four Thirds standard. Shorter focal lengths (half those of 35mm film cameras) go towards lighter weight and very good zoom range effectively 28mm - 300mm in 35mm equivalent with the two kit lenses. But also a smaller sensor for the megapixels with consequent noise problems to manage. You have to study the manual to get the best out of the E520. The most useful online review is of its immediate predecessor the E510, in dpreview.com. Olympus' compromise has been to add strong automatic noise reduction which makes for softer, more blurry image definition and then to counteract that by a high default level of sharpening. Frankly, that doesn't work very well. For clearer images with more detail comparable to the Canon EOS 400 series and the Nikon D80 you will want to use Program mode with noise reduction off, sharpening reduced and ISO in the range 100 - 400. This is not the best camera for good image quality with low available light and higher ISOs (it goes up to 1600) although you still get usable images with noise reduction at auto then. Strong points are light weight, practical handling, battery performance, good kit lenses, good image stabilisation, acclaimed dust control, very good white balance, lovely natural colours, a good range of features including live view (with enlargement for fine focus adjustment), bracketing, scope to customise. Weak points are low light performance, soft images on auto, three point autofocus, small tunnel-like view through the finder (a Four-Thirds problem), lowish dynamic range with a tendency to clip highlights, diffraction blur at small apertures. Olympus have made the most of the Four Thirds system's potential advantages and have tried to compensate for its deficiencies by in-camera processing. Lastly, Olympus trumpet their shadow adjustment and gradation features but I haven't found them worth writing about. All up, a good camera if you want light weight, practical features, good handling at the expense of some image quality especially in lower light. Next time I'd save more money and go up a league or two...Olympus E-520 DSLR with ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 & ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm 1:4.0-5.6 lenses