Thanks for the feedback guys. I do wonder whether this attitude (for want of a better word and no criticism intended) is limited to this forum for say, historic reasons. I have found a Yahoo forum which is actually dedicated to the Olympus cameras
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/O...rophotography/
and from what I have read, camera modding is certainly "on".
With regards software, I have been checking out the Olympus site and Olympus have 2 main support programs. The one which comes with the camera is simply an archiving and editing program, the other also includes camera control.
The major difference that I can see is that they use CMOS rather than CCD (although I haven't checked their high-end cameras) and this could account for their reported noise levels.
Robert (doing some research)