Just got my new Olympus 850 SW (Waterproof) and as much as I love it, Olympus left a bad taste in my mouth

[aphex]

I was super happy when we picked up the new digicam today from Sams, the Olympus 850 SW (Waterproof/Shockproof/Freezeproof) digicam. The motivation behind the upgrade was that we wanted to get a new "take everywhere" cam and since we just got new Kayaks, what better than a waterproof one to take pics of our prize catches. We got the camera for a great price.

I was happy to see that Olympus included a MicroSD -> xD adapter as xD memory sucks just about as much as Memory Stick does with Sony, especially since it maxes out at 2GB. Anyway, so I pop my new 8gb MicroSDHC card into the adapter and fire it up, works great except (as it turns out), Olympus completely disables in-camera panorama for anything but an Olympus Branded xD memory card. WTF!

After searching around a bit, turns out there are no hardware differences in the card and they've been doing this for years to force you into buying Olympus branded memory. Panorama won't even work if you get a Fuji branded xD, it HAS to be Olympus.

In the end, is it a deal breaker? No, I can do the panorama in my computer (and it will likely look better). So far, i'm happy with the camera. But it did take me aback a little and reek of corporate greed. Just leaves a bad taste in my mouth of Olympus as a company.

 

[soydios]

dang. my 1030SW only restricts the video record length.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: soydios
dang. my 1030SW only restricts the video record length.

Looked into the 1030SW, was a bit too expensive for my purposes but it sure does look like a sweet camera. Odd that it doesn't have the same restriction.

 

[scott916]

That's a pretty tasteless decision on their part. Choices like this make me wonder sometimes who the hell is making the decisions, it just sounds so counter-intuitive to their business interests and public perception of their brand.

 

[aphex]

So apparently that wasn't the only Olympus implemented limitation, in the highest quality movie mode you can only record a max of 10 seconds of video unless you use the "proper" memory card.

I am seriously considering returning the camera and maybe switching to the new panasonic once the price drops. I am really not liking Olympus right now.

 

[GrJohnso]

Yep, not sure why they did that, but they do clearly document that fact so it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise... For the pano stuff, I could care less. But it really does suck to restrict the movie mode. They claim it's to reduce customer support issues related to poor quality (slow) cards causing video errors, etc... Not sure about the pano though, no real excuse I can think of for that...

 

[soydios]

Originally posted by: aphex

Originally posted by: soydios
dang. my 1030SW only restricts the video record length.

Looked into the 1030SW, was a bit too expensive for my purposes but it sure does look like a sweet camera. Odd that it doesn't have the same restriction.

shucks...I just checked and panoramas are also disabled in my camera. I'm using the microSD adapter with a cheap 2GB Kingston MicroSD card. seems like our cameras have the same artificial limitations.

 

[aphex]

So I got back to the states yesterday and decide to dump the pictures off the camera using a standard Mini-USB cable, only to find out that the Olympus uses a break out cable for USB support (there isn't a Mini-USB port right on the camera itself). Doh! Shame on me for not looking into that earlier, but that's just another annoyance with this camera.

Dumped the pics using my mother in law's SD reader and while some pics came out nice and sharp, the waterproof glass covering the lens seems to have developed a mild smudge/film which degraded all the pictures taken in the second half of the trip, really cut down on the quality of the latter images.

Hrmph, I dunno what to do at this point. I love the flexibility of an underwater camera, but I feel like Olympus is making me sacrifice too much to go with them on this one. Shitty memory, arbitrary limitations on what I can do if I don't use their memory, no mini-USB right on the camera, and smudgy pictures after using the camera underwater just a few times. I may have to bring this one back I fear...

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: aphex
So I got back to the states yesterday and decide to dump the pictures off the camera using a standard Mini-USB cable, only to find out that the Olympus uses a break out cable for USB support (there isn't a Mini-USB port right on the camera itself). Doh! Shame on me for not looking into that earlier, but that's just another annoyance with this camera.

Dumped the pics using my mother in law's SD reader and while some pics came out nice and sharp, the waterproof glass covering the lens seems to have developed a mild smudge/film which degraded all the pictures taken in the second half of the trip, really cut down on the quality of the latter images.

Hrmph, I dunno what to do at this point. I love the flexibility of an underwater camera, but I feel like Olympus is making me sacrifice too much to go with them on this one. Shitty memory, arbitrary limitations on what I can do if I don't use their memory, no mini-USB right on the camera, and smudgy pictures after using the camera underwater just a few times. I may have to bring this one back I fear...

There are other brands of the waterproof stuff. Canon I know makes one, Panasonic coming out with one later this year I think (if not already out).

 

[scott916]

Originally posted by: Kelvrick

Originally posted by: aphex
So I got back to the states yesterday and decide to dump the pictures off the camera using a standard Mini-USB cable, only to find out that the Olympus uses a break out cable for USB support (there isn't a Mini-USB port right on the camera itself). Doh! Shame on me for not looking into that earlier, but that's just another annoyance with this camera.

Dumped the pics using my mother in law's SD reader and while some pics came out nice and sharp, the waterproof glass covering the lens seems to have developed a mild smudge/film which degraded all the pictures taken in the second half of the trip, really cut down on the quality of the latter images.

Hrmph, I dunno what to do at this point. I love the flexibility of an underwater camera, but I feel like Olympus is making me sacrifice too much to go with them on this one. Shitty memory, arbitrary limitations on what I can do if I don't use their memory, no mini-USB right on the camera, and smudgy pictures after using the camera underwater just a few times. I may have to bring this one back I fear...

There are other brands of the waterproof stuff. Canon I know makes one, Panasonic coming out with one later this year I think (if not already out).

Engadget just did a comparison of the new canon and panasonic cameras, I think the panasonic looks much nicer. The canon looks cheap, like a kid's camera or a bar of soap.

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: Kelvrick

Originally posted by: aphex
So I got back to the states yesterday and decide to dump the pictures off the camera using a standard Mini-USB cable, only to find out that the Olympus uses a break out cable for USB support (there isn't a Mini-USB port right on the camera itself). Doh! Shame on me for not looking into that earlier, but that's just another annoyance with this camera.

Dumped the pics using my mother in law's SD reader and while some pics came out nice and sharp, the waterproof glass covering the lens seems to have developed a mild smudge/film which degraded all the pictures taken in the second half of the trip, really cut down on the quality of the latter images.

Hrmph, I dunno what to do at this point. I love the flexibility of an underwater camera, but I feel like Olympus is making me sacrifice too much to go with them on this one. Shitty memory, arbitrary limitations on what I can do if I don't use their memory, no mini-USB right on the camera, and smudgy pictures after using the camera underwater just a few times. I may have to bring this one back I fear...

There are other brands of the waterproof stuff. Canon I know makes one, Panasonic coming out with one later this year I think (if not already out).

Pentax has one as well.

I'm quite surprised about this as well...then again I;ve never had Olympus gear so I wouldn't even know
Do their DSLRs suffer from this restriction as well? The f31fd I have uses a 1 gig xD card, and I think it is indeed a branded olympus card. However, one company is Fuji and the other is Olympus ;0
And Fungus on the lens that quickly is grounds for being returned by me. Of course, maybe it was a fluke...can you see if you can clean it off?

 

[rdp6]

We had an Olympus camera which served us for nearly 9 years (3 megapixels, I think). It used SmartMedia cards and took pretty good photos. I'd definitely consider another Olympus model in the future, but not if they are gonna nickel and dime me with nonstandard memory.

I wonder if anyone does not use proprietary USB connectors. My Canon video camera and Fijufilm P&S both appear to use special connectors. Beyond that, I wonder if any of the camera designers are spearheading efforts into ultrawideband wireless communications.

 

[bobdole369]

I was super happy when we picked up the new digicam today from Sams, the Olympus 850 SW

My wife (a pro admittedly jaded) - bought one for our cruise last year. Even I thought it was garbage. Just my 2 cents. No good pictures came out of that camera, and there were 2 experienced folks running it. Very well could be that we were overthinking it and actually trying to use it as a camera - as opposed to a point and shoot device.

Dumped the pics using my mother in law's SD reader and while some pics came out nice and sharp, the waterproof glass covering the lens seems to have developed a mild smudge/film which degraded all the pictures taken in the second half of the trip, really cut down on the quality of the latter images.

Our problem was the camera trying to expose properly and failing miserably. Blurred pics resulted from terrible metering keeping the shutter open for 1/4 in broad daylight, high ass ISO for no reason at all killed most of the rest. Didn't see any issue with the lens though.

 

[aphex]

So I ended up returning the camera today, I was experiencing many of the same problems bob mentioned above. Issues with exposure, focus (front focusing, back focusing, and at times non-focusing). Even my old Canon S400 had none of the same problems.

I'm done with Olympus

 

[PurdueRy]

I remember this on my old Olympus C-606(or something like that. It would only be able to access panorama mode with an olympus branded smart media card.

 

[oogabooga]

Originally posted by: aphex
So I ended up returning the camera today, I was experiencing many of the same problems bob mentioned above. Issues with exposure, focus (front focusing, back focusing, and at times non-focusing). Even my old Canon S400 had none of the same problems.

I'm done with Olympus

at least there are alternatives available? It would suck if they controlled that niche market completely.