Look what I found cheap in a second hand shop. I just couldn't resist it!

Wow that looks very expensive Eris. nice

Ironic....!
A picture of a camera that you took a picture of but the camera is on the table! :O

Good find!
What kind of batteries does it run on? And does it take a card or something else for data storage?

@Molly:

It runs on a very big battery that looks nothing like any other battery I have seen. The battery is rechargeable and the camera came with a charger and also 4 spare lenses. I think the previous owners kept the memory card and I'm going to have to get a new one. It cost me just over £100 which isn't much more than my compact cost me.

Just what are you implying fb?

The E500 is a very old model (8Mpx, introduced in 2005...)... Camera bodies deprecate very quickly... You'll have a hard time finding XD cards for it, Olympus has seen the light and now uses SD card... It will also use CF cards, but I'm not even sure it can use the modern ones (that may be too big for its firmware).

Still likely to produce better pictures that the garden-variety compact camera.

Hunt now for a replacement battery... The batteries age, so the one you have is getting old, and unless much more recent Olympus cameras still use that model, they will become hard to find very quickly.

Thank you for the advice ofnuts. I should have done some research before parting with my money but then again, I might soon have an antique that I can sell at a profit. I'm hoping that one of AnMal's old cards will be ok.

erisian: woohoo, you have a new camera! and it is a good one too, accoring to all the reviews i have read. yes, cameras age, but my old one was older than yours and only started giving me trouble last year, so you'll probably be just fine with it. i took a look at the battery and it seems to take the same type of battery my new camera uses - i don't think it should be difficult finding those and i'm very sure you can still order them online directly from olympus in case they're hard to fins in the stores. you can have both my cf cards and they will fit, but at least here in sweden you won't have any problems finding xd or micro drive in the stores if you prefer those types. nice to have a camera that gives you a choice of three types .

Thank you AnMal. I managed to find both a battery and an XD card very easily but together they cost me nearly half as much as I paid for the camera! Now if I could only work out what all these dials and settings are all about.....

Congrats Erisian. Check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSgsfZ-CXkc

Thanks sallyanne. When I can watch videos I'll have a look at this. I have found a PDF manual and I'll try and get to grips with it in the meantime. This thing has got more buttons and dials than the USS Enterprise!

Sweet!