Hijacking the thread... :-) Cyn, depending on your budget, you might want to wait till autumn, cause the E-1 successor will appear for Photokina. OTOH, E-500 is one of the best cameras in its range, as well as one of the cheapest. And Olympus lenses are to die for... Unfortunately, the top-of-the-line lenses are the most expensive. OTTH, you can buy E-1 cheaply now. It will certainly be suitable for somebody who is not focused on any particular genre - it's sealed, so you can shot in rain or in heavy dust. Hmmmmm. How many of us would be even more all over the place if we had cameras that can stand extreme conditions? There's a thread over at dpreview where a guy posted a photo of e-1 totally covered in dust. I mean totally, you can't see the surface of the camera. And it still works without a hitch.

-- erlik