So, my Olympus C4000Z finally met it's maker...
Just a short 45 minutes after it took this photo, I plucked it from my pocket at my girlfriend's indoor soccer game. After I turned it on and set everything up (this means the lens enclosure was at maximum extension), I sat it down on the bleacher row in front of me to wait for something worthy of a shot. Eventually, that moment came. In my haste, it slipped from my hand - smashing against the footwell on the bleacher on it's way to the concrete floor.
From where I was sitting, everything looked okay. So I ducked off the bleachers and scooped it up. Everything wasn't okay. The whole lens assembly was askew. Naturally, I tried to fix it. After all, it should just snap back into place, right? Err, apparently not. Long story short, I did a bit more damage trying to fix it, and ceremoniously chucked it across the parking lot (after fishing out my precious memory card and rechargeable batteries). The parking lot did less damage than the fall did.
I paid $300 refurbished for this camera, which, at the time, was a cool $400. 4.0MP, 3x optical zoom, ultra-small Smartmedia memory, this thing was TEHPWN at the time. Of course, smartmedia died out, never scaling past 128mb, and large body cameras largely went the way of the dinosaur in favor of all kinds of tiny slimline cutesey crap.
So, I need a new camera. The absolute MOST I can pay is $200. I'm not interested in more resolution, but I'd like all the features of the Olympus on my next camera, if not more. My main gripe with this thing is that there is no way to make it responsive. In plain P+S mode, often 2-3 seconds will pass between pretting the button and it taking a picture a it autofocuses, sets the exposure, etc. etc. etc. etc. Even if you manually locked some or all of those things, it still took FOREVER.
I have no qualms about refurbs, either. Or big cameras.
The cameras that I've considered are:
Canon Powershot A430 (4mp, 4x optical zoom, $140 new)
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z2 (3.9mp, 10x optical, $190 Factory Refurb)
Fujifilm Finepix S5100/S5500 (4.0mp, 10x optical, $199 Factory refurb)
IMO, the Fuji is looking to be the better camera, and will allow me to do things that I wish I could have done with the Olympus but never could (primarily because of it's 3FPS continuous drive, where I was lucky to get .3FPS with the Olympus)
But what do other people think? The powershot may be a slightly better fit for "real life" - but I really don't carry my camera everywhere, and when I do have it, I want things to look decent.
Any other recommendations?
Just a short 45 minutes after it took this photo, I plucked it from my pocket at my girlfriend's indoor soccer game. After I turned it on and set everything up (this means the lens enclosure was at maximum extension), I sat it down on the bleacher row in front of me to wait for something worthy of a shot. Eventually, that moment came. In my haste, it slipped from my hand - smashing against the footwell on the bleacher on it's way to the concrete floor.
From where I was sitting, everything looked okay. So I ducked off the bleachers and scooped it up. Everything wasn't okay. The whole lens assembly was askew. Naturally, I tried to fix it. After all, it should just snap back into place, right? Err, apparently not. Long story short, I did a bit more damage trying to fix it, and ceremoniously chucked it across the parking lot (after fishing out my precious memory card and rechargeable batteries). The parking lot did less damage than the fall did.
I paid $300 refurbished for this camera, which, at the time, was a cool $400. 4.0MP, 3x optical zoom, ultra-small Smartmedia memory, this thing was TEHPWN at the time. Of course, smartmedia died out, never scaling past 128mb, and large body cameras largely went the way of the dinosaur in favor of all kinds of tiny slimline cutesey crap.
So, I need a new camera. The absolute MOST I can pay is $200. I'm not interested in more resolution, but I'd like all the features of the Olympus on my next camera, if not more. My main gripe with this thing is that there is no way to make it responsive. In plain P+S mode, often 2-3 seconds will pass between pretting the button and it taking a picture a it autofocuses, sets the exposure, etc. etc. etc. etc. Even if you manually locked some or all of those things, it still took FOREVER.
I have no qualms about refurbs, either. Or big cameras.
The cameras that I've considered are:
Canon Powershot A430 (4mp, 4x optical zoom, $140 new)
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z2 (3.9mp, 10x optical, $190 Factory Refurb)
Fujifilm Finepix S5100/S5500 (4.0mp, 10x optical, $199 Factory refurb)
IMO, the Fuji is looking to be the better camera, and will allow me to do things that I wish I could have done with the Olympus but never could (primarily because of it's 3FPS continuous drive, where I was lucky to get .3FPS with the Olympus)
But what do other people think? The powershot may be a slightly better fit for "real life" - but I really don't carry my camera everywhere, and when I do have it, I want things to look decent.
Any other recommendations?
Facebook
Twitter