Say good-bye to the Olympus C-770 (above): the Powershot is in the house! It was a good
camera for 2004, but it's a generation behind now. Taken a beating too, as the dent there in the bottom of the U/V filter attests. I was so impressed with my buddy Jason's S3 that I went out and bought the next one up, just out this summer, the Canon Powershot S5 IS. Whoa! Ready to go when you hit the on button. Zero shutter lag. 12X telephoto. Great pics, handles the white balance really well. Huge LCD for composing shots. Functions all accessible in one/two-touch design. Image stabilization. Sensuous, solid camera feel -- the Olympus was too small and boxy to feel like a camera. Clearly a lot of skull-sweat went into this camera. [
Camera]
Say hello to my Powershot. $13,200.* One year guarantee. Another $1,100 for the 2GB high speed SD card. I didn't bother with any other accessories, although I was sorely tempted by the
Gorillapod from Joby on sale there. The store, Hwa Yang, is located at #315-1, Sec 3 of Dz You (Freedom) Road, directly across from the huge armed services PX, just across the street from the main park downtown.
Just down the road there is a flea market/junk market that is open most mornings, so we dropped in there to test out the camera.
Very nice.
Plenty of complex tatoos around.
In the low light conditions of the market, every shot was crisp and clear, though in a couple of shots there was graininess caused by high ISO. Although I deleted some images because I didn't like the composition, I didn't delete any because they were unclear due to camera shake in low light. Sweet.
I was particularly pleased with the camera's performance in shots like this. Note how the bright background is still reasonably detailed. Lots of times with the Olympus the backgrounds were simply lost in a vast sea of brightness.
Of course, we stopped by 85C to celebrate with their delicious sugar-free mango slushy.
[Taiwan]*By the way, if anyone asks where I am for the next two years, I'll be washing the dishes.
You can ponder that snake while you're scrubbing.
ReplyDeleteLooking good, old boy! Can't wait to see shots from your next safari up to Tamshui!
ReplyDeleteI hope you make a post in a few months that shows if you are truly happy with the switch in camera. I am looking now for a new one, and my old one is a digital dinosaur. Knowing how I work though it will be at least a month before I buy one.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't you go for one of those Nikon D series cams???
Wow! Nice Camera shots. The pictures are waaaaaaay more clearer than the earlier ones. Maybe I can purchase a good camera in Japan and post pics on my blog.
ReplyDelete"So easy a caveman can do it"
Lol
Oh and Michael you need to go to youtube.com and type in "Geico Caveman playing golf"
That is like soo priceless man! hahaha!
Alright keep up the good work.
johnny, I'd switch now. I've owned and worked with several high function prosumer cameras, the Fuji S5000, the Olympus C-770, and others. This is the best.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to upgrade from a 3X point and click and are a bit intimidated by all the functionality, I'd go with a Fuji S5600. David on Formosa uses that, I just did some shooting with it this weekend. It feels great in the hand, takes wonderful shots, and has a variety of abilities and is easier to learn -- and has that killer 10X telephoto/macro lens. But the Powershot S5 is so cheap, and so good, it's probably worth it to switch right away. Don't wait for my report, go for it.
I'd didn't get a Nikon because we don't have the money for all the lenses I'd need.
Michael
Oh, you left the stickers on the old camera. That's so cute.
ReplyDeleteCanon's are great cameras, I think. All of my digital cameras have been Canons. They've been adding a lot of in-camera processing lately, however, so who knows if they'll end up overdoing it like Panasonic/Leica and some others.