The Best Digital SLR for Landscapes

Page updated: August 2007

Before I tell you about the best digital SLR for landscapes, let's talk about some of the qualities of a good landscape camera.

It doesn't have to be blazing fast - unlike portrait subjects, landscapes are willing to stay quite still
It must reproduce colors faithfully - a beautiful sunset is less impressive when the color isn't right
It needs a wide angle of view to capture all of the scenery

And the Winner Is...

My pick for the best digital SLR for landscapes is the Olympus E-510.

This camera meets all of the criteria above, and thows in a few extra features that can be used to capture beautiful landscape images.

Feature Overview

Here are some of the features of Olympus E-510 that really make it work for landscape photography:

Live view mode lets you compose photos without looking through the viewfinder
Image stabilization keeps photos clear, even with slow shutter speeds
Color, contrast and image sharpness are all easy to customize
The standard kit lens captures sharp images with low distortion
The camera body and lens are exceptionally light and easy to carry
Panorama mode lets you take in the entire view

Let's dig into each one of these features in more detail, so that you can see why each one is useful (and so that I can justify my choice of the best digital SLR for landscape photography).

Live View Mode

The Olympus E-510 is one of only four digital SLR cameras with a live view mode (coincidentally, most of the others are also Olympus).

The live view mode lets you compose photos using the camera's LCD, just like you can with any compact digital camera.

This is immensly helpful when you're trying to capture unique points of view in your landscape photos: not having to use the viewfinder all the time frees you up to take photos from high and low angles.

Another benefit of the live view mode is that you can superimpose a variety of grid lines onto the LCD screen.

The grid lines help you to make sure that your horizon lines run straight across the image. This is an important detail, since tilted horizon lines can really ruin an otherwise perfect landscape shot.

Image Stabilization

Die-hard landscape photographers will tell you that the only true form of image stabilization is a tripod.

While I tend to agree with them, I've also found that it's not always practical to lug around a tripod at all times in the event that a beautiful landscape shot will present itself.

One thing's for sure: great landscape images benefit from a lot of depth of field, and depth of field is maximized when you use narrow lens apertures (f/11 to f/22).

Unfortunately, narrow apertures go hand in hand with slow shutter speeds - and slow shutter speeds are the most common cause of blurry photos when you're holding the camera in your hands.

Happily, the E-510 solves this problem with its built-in image stabilization system.

Now you can hand-hold the camera (if you don't have your tripod close at hand) and can take clear landscape photos even using slow shutter speeds without having to worry about blur caused by camera shake.

This feature also allows you to create some nice water effects, which would not be possible with other cameras unless you did have the SLR secured to a tripod.

Color Modes

Another reason why I think the E-510 is the best digital SLR for landscapes is because its color modes are easy to change and easy to customize.

The primary modes available on the E-510 are neutral, vivid, muted and monochrome.

It's quite easy to change between these four modes by using the detailed information display available on the camera's LCD.

It's also easy to further customize each individual color mode: you can make adjustments to how each mode handles contrast, sharpness and color saturation.

With this level of control, you can fine-tune the way the camera captures color to get the maximum impact in your landscape photos.

Lenses

One of the lenses that comes packaged with the E-510 is a nice wide-angle 14-42mm zoom (the other lens that you can get in a E-510 kit is a 40-150mm zoom).

At 14mm, this lens helps you pull all the scenery in front of you into your image.

It's also one of the best kit lenses that I've had the opportunity to use. One of the problem with kit lenses is that they typically aren't high-quality.

They are packaged with SLR cameras for those people just making the jump to an SLR who don't already have a lot of lenses lying around the house.

As such, the image quality that they produce typically leaves a lot to be desired, and I often recommend that people buy an SLR camera body only, and then spend a bit more on a better lens.

In this case, I don't have to. Images captured with the 14-42mm kit lens were sharp, clear and colorful, and exhibited less distortion (bending of the image around the edges of the frame) than other kit lenses I've used.

Size and Weight

Besides being fairly compact, the E-510 is also incredibly light relative to other digital SLR cameras.

Composed of high-rigidity fiberglass and metal plates, the E-510 is diminutive in size but still feels solid in the hand and not like some plastic toy.

Dimensions (Width x Height x Depth)		Weight
Inches	Millimeters	Ounces	Grams
5.4 x 3.6 x 2.7	136 x 92 x 68	16.2	460

Once you add on the fact that Olympus 4/3 lenses are also exceptionally compact and light (one benefit of the 4/3 system), you've got a camera that is quite portable, and easy to carry with you into the great outdoors.

Panorama Mode

For the landscape photographer who wants to capture it all, the E-510 also has a panorama mode.

While this mode only works with the Olympus xD picture cards (it won't work with the Compact Flash cards that you can also use with the E-510), it preserves the exposure settings as you take multiple photos while panning the camera.

You then have to use image editing software to "stitch" the multiple images into one long panorama, but this is significantly easier to do when the color and exposure of each one of the photos is identical.

In Summary

So there you have it - a light, portable digital SLR with a nice wide-angle kit lens, built-in image stabilization, a wide range of color modes, a live view LCD screen to help you compose your shots and a panorama mode.

It's just about everything a landscape photographer could hope for in a camera.

Now you just have to go out and find those exceptional landscapes to photograph.

Read the complete Olympus E-510 Guide