In my opinion the last really good non-SLR Oly digicams were the C-8080 and
the C-7070. Both were killed within a year or so of production start,
despite very good reviews - the C-7070 had just received an EISA Compact
camera of the year award when it was axed. Both had fine (made in Japan)
construction with a magnesium chassis, and a fine wide zoom lens. The 7070
could go right down to 21mm eqiv with its supplementary lens. It also had
fine macro capabilities, both lens-wise and with a fine tilt-and-swivel LCD.
I suspect that production costs killed both cameras.
I now use an E-1, principally with the D Zuiko 18-180 lens; a C-7070 when I
need something smaller, or for macro work, and my wife's Fuji F10 when I
need something that will slip in a pocket, or for low-light shots. The E-1
and the C-7070 share the same battery, the same remote release, and the same
flash (FL-36). The 7070 can use the FL-36 together with the internal flash,
and produces really excellent flash pictures.
Next upgrade will probably be an F30 to replace the F10.
Roger Key,
Bagsvaerd, Danmark
>From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
>To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [OM] Re: Oops - SP-550 UZ review at dpreview
>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:11:25 -0700
>
>Phil wrote:
> >> Moose wrote: I really want to find an Oly digicam that I can buy and
>enjoy
> >> using.
> >> Time to plan trips to waterfalls and other wet places and look at the
> >> 770 SW again.....
> >>
> >
> >
> > Moose
> >
> > What is your selection criteria for a Digicam?
> >
>Which category? I can sort of answer a couple indirectly without
>rambling on and on.
>
>DLSR - 5D
>Compact P&S - F30
>
>There is nothing on the market now that would change either of those.
>Neither is perfect, both make me very happy.
>
>Likely winner, rugged and waterproof - Oly 770 SW, pending test
>confirmation it's image qualities are no worse (a little better,
>please!) than the 730.
>
>Winner in the category of the subject line, superzoom, none. Current
>leaders, S3 IS and H5. S6000fd would be a contender if it had IS. As it
>is, it's big enough that I might just as well buy an 18-200+ mm zoom for
>the 300D, which will have better image quality, too. Then if I am going
>to carry that, why not the 5D? New contenders not yet delivered, H7/9.
>
>My first criterion is image quality. If it can't make a clean, noise
>free, artifact free image at base iso, there has to be some compelling
>feature(s) to justify it. The 770 SW might fall into this, with complete
>waterproofness to deeper than I can dive nowadays and drop and crush
>resistance.
>
>Second is the ability to deliver good image quality over a wide range of
>shooting situations. For me, that will usually be some combo of low
>noise at higher isos and/or IS. It also includes how JPEGs are processed
>on cameras without RAW capability. For example, one of the changes from
>the F10 to F30, never mentioned in marketing features, is a change to
>compressing all shadow detail into the bottom of the histogram, rather
>than clipping some of it. Together with the low noise, that means
>effective dynamic range with post processing closer to a DSLR than most
>P&Ss
>
>Third is probably creative control and how easily it may be accessed. So
>spot metering is good, a manual mode that requires dipping into menus to
>change settings is worth very little. So, for example a good LCD that is
>reasonably accurate in presenting the exposure together with spot
>metering is more practically useful than manual modes that are hard to
>use. A gazillion scene modes mean nothing to me. I don't have the time
>to learn what they all do as a practical matter, and I would not
>remember when I needed to anyway. Just capture a nice, clean image with
>wide dynamic range and I'm happy.
>
>Or maybe third is speed of key operations. This is one of the places
>where the 550 falls off the table. Start-up, focus, zoom and write times
>are just awful compared to say the S3.
>
>Fuji just impressed me no end with the F30, adding even lower noise,
>putting EV compensation out of the menu onto its own button, adding Av,
>Sv and Manual and fixing the order of items in the F-Menu (which was an
>improvement over competitor button/menu designs already.) They even
>fixed the tendency of the battery to fall out when accessing the xD
>card. It's like someone in design actually used the F10 a lot and made a
>list of most needed improvements in order to catch the best images. And
>who's doing that these days?
>
>I've been waiting to see if anybody can put together a superzoom for
>casual use that would meet the decent image quality criterion. The zoom
>range on the F30 is limited and the 5D is not all that small. :-) The
>S3 is just about there, and I like the tilt and swivel LCD a lot, but
>it's only 2" and awfully small compared to what I'm used to, and the EVF
>is nothing to get excited about. Long end AF is less than as good as I
>would like, too, although not as bad as the 550 UZ appears to be. The H5
>is close too, but I want to see what they have done with the
>replacements for it.
>
>Well, that's a few things. :-)
>
>Moose
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