According to Kazuya Kobayashi, a manager in Olympus R&D's Electronic Device Department, it is well known that "when a slow shutter speed is used - for example, at night or under low light, the camera shake produced by the vibrations of the user's hands can be a big problem, especially when shooting using a zoom or telephoto lens.
To deal with this, we designed and developed a completely original IS (Image Stabilization) mechanism that uses SWD (Supersonic Wave Drive) actuators and incorporated it in the E-510.
To tell the truth," admits Mr. Kobayashi, "we weren't just interested in eliminating camera shake, we also wanted to enable possible extended exposure without using a flash and without having to worry about camera shake. We knew this would expand the field of photography."

Mr. Kobayashi settled into his theme, explaining the development process in detail.

"To achieve our goal, the first thing we had to do was go back to basics. We started by analyzing just what exactly 'camera shake' is. To do this, we installed highly accurate gyro sensor for aircraft use in the camera and quantitatively measured the 'camera shake' during shooting. To obtain the most comprehensive and reliable data, we varied shooting parameters such as the lens type and studied how the user actually holds the camera - based on the widest possible range of subjects (classified by sex, age, camera experience, etc.). We then used the analysis data to extract the conditions that generate camera shake and used them as a reference when constructing our image stabilization mechanism.
Through the course of this work, we succeeded in developing an image stabilization mechanism able to cope with virtually any variation of 'camera shake,' from the shake generated by big, slow body movements (low frequencies) to that produced by the trembling of the arms and wrists (high frequencies).
This new image stabilization system allows reliable handheld macro, telescopic, or zoom shooting with minimized camera shake. It's even effective in situations that would previously required a tripod and flash."