Finally, a decent digital camera in my hands: Olympus SP-570UZ

Finally.  I now have a decent digital camera.  This is Olympus SP-570UZ, with 20X optical zoom, 10 megapixel resolution, and the zoom ring.  This camera wasn't actually what I had in mind, as most 'professional' reviews online totally trashed this camera.  I wanted Sony DSC-H50 instead, which had less zoom and resolution but was better received in most reviews nonetheless.  However, when Futureshop had this on sale for $315 about two weeks ago, I thought it was an opportunity too good to pass up; it was about $80 less than the Sony counterpart.  Besides, I figured, any camera I buy now would be an upgrade from my old 2 megapixel Kodak DC290.

Although this antique from 1999 still takes awesome pictures in skilled hands (it was one of the prefessonal-level digital cameras by Kodak and cost more than a grand when it was first released), I thought it was time to let it go.  This unit eats battery power like a Hummer guzzles gas.  If you leave the LCD display on for longer than 30 seconds, even fully-charged NiMh AA batteries do not stand a chance, so the LCD display did not see much use while it was in my hands.  Plus, cell phone cameras nowadays have higher resolution.

I started learning about the basics of photography since I bought my new camera, and heck, they were much simpler than I expected: Once you get aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings down pat, everything else comes down to how much time you spend with your camera.

Just to show you how potent the optical zoom is with SP-570UZ, I took four photos, two wide-angle shots and two fully zoomed in.

This is a wide-angle shot of Rideau Canal.  Now...

This is the same Rideau Canal, fully zoomed in.  If you have good eyes, you might have noticed in the first picture that someone was on the other side of the canal.  Well, this is him. 

The blue and sand-coloured buildings in the centre are part of OttawaU campus.  Under the blue building there is a big red sign with "Universite d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa" on it.  You probably can't see it here unless you have the eyes of an eagle.

Holy shmoly.  This is what 20X zoom can do.  Even the slighest hand jitter becomes more prominent with extended zoom, and given the low ISO number I used for this shot, it came out pretty sharp. 

This camera also takes pretty impressive macros, but I don't have anything worthy to show you right now.  I should go out and take more photos, but it's getting cold.

As many other reviews online mentioned, the camera's noise-reduction capability is downright disappointing, to the point that I'd be hesitant to use anything higher than ISO200.  You can even see the difference between ISO64 and ISO100.  That's such a shame, as even my old Kodak DC290 takes noiseless pictures at ISO100.

I took this picture with different ISO numbers: the following bits of the picture show noise progression with increasing ISO number.

      

      

      

ISO 64                       ISO100                      ISO200                      ISO400

     

ISO 800                     ISO1600

This is just horrible.  You can already see substantial noise at ISO200.  I've seen a review on Sony DSC-H50, and its ISO400 did not have visible noise like this camera did.  Noise is definitely an issue with this camera.

There has been a lot of talks about how the camera reacts painfully slowly to the zoom ring; the zoom ring is not mechanical, but rather the ring triggers the motor which moves the lens.  The problem has been fixed with a new firmware update, and it works to a level that wouldn't cause annoyance.  Another thing about the zoom ring is that I have to spin the ring counterclockwise to zoom in, and although I've never used a camera with a zoom ring around the lense barrel, I find that it should be the opposite.  I keep spinning it clockwise and realize I have to spin it the other way.

 

Well, despite some glaring shortcomings, I am happy with this camera in general.  As I said, no matter what camera I bought, it still would have been an upgrade from my aging 2 megapixel camera.  This camera is a huge upgrade.  I have used this camara for the past three days and the battery bar is still full.  It has an impressive 20x zoom.  It takes great outdoor photos.  For now, that's all I need.