April just got back from a funeral in Florida and she took along a
little Centurion S APS camera that I bought her. She's strictly a
point-and-shoot photographer and I'd had her using a Stylus Epic for
ages, but I decided to grab her a Centurion mainly so I could see what
the APS format printed like. She still carries the Stylus Epic around
in her purse since it's about a fourth the size of the Centurion and
has a great little lens on it. The Centurion obviously varies widely
depending on the conditions and film used, but she shot a couple of
rolls of Fuji Nexia 800 on her trip. Now, obviously these will probably
never be seen at anything but 4x6, but I'm frequently really impressed
with the snapshots she brings home. The format is really well suited to
most consumer photography. You could do a lot worse than a Centurion S
for shooting family vacations, friends, etc., especially if you cringe
at handling a very complicated camera (which obviously none of you do
since you're here, but...). She feels a lot more in control using an
SLR than a rangefinder and the exposure modes on the Centurion are
pretty easy to use. Anyway, I guess my point is that Olympus turned out
a pretty decent offering in the APS market when they put the little
bugger together. The optics seem above average and it's easy enough to
handle that she'll actually use it, which is the big hurdle. I really
like seeing her enjoying it. It's cool to actually successfully get
someone interested in taking pictures. I should probably get her an IS
when she feels comfortable enough with the Centurion. I imagine it
should seem like a natural migration for her. The thing that's really
nice about APS is that she'll load her own film now. I showed her how
to load 35mm, but she never liked doing it and always ended up making
me load her camera for her, as goofy as that sounds. It's cool to see
her getting so comfy with a camera. Reminds me of being 7 and feeling
like my 220 Instamatic was the hippest. "Flash-CUBES, man...four shots
in a row. Dig." ;-)
-Rob (sorry to ramble, but it seemed very Olympus ATM...)
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|