I am an amateur photographer with just enough knowledge about photography and its technicalities as an average joe would have, which in most cases is limited to picking up the camera, selecting the Auto option and happily pointing the camera, allowing time for it to set the focus and press the button to capture a snap.
This was 2006 and I was in need of a camera for an upcoming tour. I went shopping and finally after looking at many models and brands and prices, it finally came down to two brands, the Kodak or the Olympus. Both camera were in the same price range and more or less offered the same features. What clinched the deal in favor of Olympus was its zoom. I mean a 10X optical zoom with further room for digital zoom was a dream come true for an avid nature clicker. If budget wasn’t a constraint, I would have picked up the Canon EOS range which was exactly what I wanted but not everyone can afford a camera worth 40 grand, so I settled for the high end pseudo DSLR called the SP500 UZ. I picked up the camera for 25 odd grand and went home.
Usage
As is the case with digital cameras, the first use is more or less based on Hit & Trial. Tried the various auto settings and due to lack of any technical skill or knowledge, did not bother to play with the manual settings. The results were good and I was finally satisfied with my purchase.
The first ever test of the camera came when I went touring to Manali. Having never used the camera before extensively, I was a bit of a greenhorn but as they say, familiarity leads to bonding, I got around to knowing it very well. The results were excellent. Good image quality with various size settings and with a 256MB XD card, I could click upto 174 snaps using the HQ setting for image quality.
2 years down the line with enough usage on various settings , my take is that the only time this camera disappoints is when you try shooting a moving object. The sport mode is good if you want to shoot the image panning sideways and manage to keep the subject in the frame. What do you do when the subject is coming at you head on and you want to click snaps? You stand in the front and try to click the snap. Now I don’t know how other cameras would work in this scenario, but the SP500UZ just did not have the juice in it to do the job. all images clicked were blurry and lacked focus. This was after having used a tripod and Sport setting which should guarantee me high shutter speeds.
For still subjects, it can hold its fort with the best of the best but for faster photopragy requirements, it is just not made for that kind of work. No
One more irksome problem is the availability of reasonably priced upgrading accessories. If you want to use different lenses, you need to purchase an adapter tube, made of the same material used to make the body of the camera... plastic. The adapter tube retails at authorized showroom for about 14000 bucks when I last checked. You would have to spend 14000 bucks for that plasticky tube thing before you can actually attach the lens which you had picked up earlier for about 12-15000 rupees. I wonder what is so special in that adapter tube which makes it even costlier than the lens it is supposed to be able to fix to the camera... Hmm...
The Camera runs on 4 AA sized cells, which can be picked up from any grocer’s store. However, make sure it is the Duracell, Energizer or their equivalent as the flash puts a heavy drain on normal cells. You cannot click more than 36 - 40 shots before you would have to change the battery pack (all 4 of them) to get the camera to work. I use Duracell and it clicks roughly about 100 snaps with flash.
Overall, if you are not expecting your camera to behave like its bigger and more snappier siblings, it is well worth the buy but do look around as now a days there are better cameras available at cheaper prices.