eichin: Birds and Snakes and Airplanes...

_Mark_ (

eichin) wrote,
@ 2007-05-20 02:55:00

Current mood:	enthusiastic
Current music:	R.E.M.
Entry tags:	photography, picture, toys

Birds and Snakes and Airplanes...

New toy - Olympus SP-550UZ. 18x zoom. I'm now a lot closer to "if I can see it I can shoot it" while still having a camera that I can have on me most of the time... only two downsides: xD cards are evil and I've been enjoying it so much that I've been spending time with the camera that I probably should be spending on other things... I tried to read the first few chapters of RESTful Web Services, enjoyed the introduction, got a few pages in to chapter one - and then went for a 3 mile hike in the rain, and found it to be a better choice, simply due to finding this and this in the middle of nowhere. This is more than just new-toy-glow, I'm averaging 80 pictures a day and far more of them make it to flickr than before.

It was definitely worth not waiting for the Canon S5-IS (the announcement of which was why I was open to looking at a larger camera.) I've even changed some of my summer plans to be more photo-oriented (not entirely because of this, but it was a real influence.)

Great Meadows NWR turns out to be a pretty good place to watch planes going into Hanscom (BED) while also observing nature; the Piaggio "pusher" above is probably more unusual and distinctive than most of the critters I saw that day :-)

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	rjpb 2007-05-20 07:07 pm UTC (link)
	I like the froggy. How are the controls on the Olympus? What made you choose that over the Canon? I am thinking of buying a digital camera in the next month myself, so I was wondering if you could recommend any good comparisons sites. (Reply to this)(Thread)

eichin
2007-05-20 07:51 pm UTC (link)

I chose the olympus over the Canon S5-IS... because the S5-IS doesn't ship until late July, and Costco had a good price on the olympus (which I'd looked at before but hadn't jumped on.) It helped that I was actually able to play with one in the store - which turned 18x from an abstract concept to immediate drooling :-)

As for the controls, the olympus has a very good auto mode - and I'm only just starting to play with the "real" modes. There seem to be pretty short paths to most of the features you want to use in any context. The real test for me has been that I've actually been getting shots that I couldn't before, and basically never have to consult the manual (it even has an on-screen-help button.)

xD is evil, though - panorama-framing mode is greyed out in the menu right now because I have a full-spec card that just happens to be Fuji branded instead of Olympus branded (there's some data in a card-information block outside the filesystem that labels it.) I haven't run into other lockouts (there are some legitimate "needs fast card" features, but a $20 1G fuji card handles those fine.) Also, by not being SD, they fail to have options like the combo-cards (SD cards that have USB pins sticking out the back, so you can just plug them in to sync) but since this camera is enough bigger that I need a larger bag anyway, carrying the direct camera cable isn't as big a deal as it is for the smaller camera.

(Note of course that xD isn't nearly as evil as Sony's Memory Stick formats, and I am putting up with this, I'm just whining :-)

The frog was in the water by the side of the trail, probably 15 ft away when I noticed him (and froze so as not to scare him off.) That's one of several shots I got (turned out he wasn't going anywhere even after I walked by :-)

The camera does seem a little noisy - probably not actually any louder than a Canon S200, though; I just noticed it some during a walk through a damp quiet forest yesterday. One odd feature is that it doesn't record audio with video unless you turn off stabilization (that was something I did have to check the manual for.)

Oh, and the ultimate comparison site is http://www.dpreview.com - they're downright obsessive. The forums are even occasionally useful (which is itself way above average.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rjpb 2007-05-20 08:28 pm UTC (link)
	One odd feature is that it doesn't record audio with video unless you turn off stabilization Would stabilization create noise in the camera? Maybe they turned off the audio due to that? http://www.dpreview.com Okay, that is the site I usually check. Thanks. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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