What Camera Do I Need, Next?
When I first started photographically documenting life as I know it recently, during the digital age, I first employed an Olympus C 5060 WZ. I still use that camera. Then I also got an Olympus E 330. I still use that camera. I use both cameras to document the life around me still, up to and including this very day.
The transition from the C 5060WZ to the E 330 was costly. Besides the kit lenses, 200 bucks, I have the 14-54, the 35 macro and the 70-300. Those three lenses set me back 800 bucks. So total, plus all the lenses and the E 330 body, I have about 1500 bucks invested which includes a trip or two to Olympus Repair for the E 330. Hold it. I also have an FL 36 flash. That’s another 150 bucks. So that’s like about 1650 bucks invested. For me, that is a huge sum because I have never gotten a nickle back on that investment. Noper. Contrast that with my 500 dollar Roosian microscope. That Roosian microscope paid for itself maybe a tousand times over. But those cameras and lenses are a total drag on my economy.
As documented on this venue, the E 330 got off to a bad start. The first year it was mostly broken. But since then it has been OK. OK if you don’t mind gluing its rubber armor back on regularly. Plus the ISO limit is around 400, and not good then. Plus the auto focus is atrocious. Mine will not ever, for example, auto focus on a bird on a wire. It simply will not do that. It can’t do that, ever. If I want to take a picture of a bird on a wire, I need to focus manually.
Uh. The E 330 is an OK camera for taking pictures of static or nearly static life as I know it, in good light, so long as there are no wires to confuse the camera. The fact is, despite the crumby auto focus, it even takes OK pictures of fairly lively subjects (bees and such) in good light. But if the light is marginal, like for example under a tree canopy, times wax tough. Correct, the auto focus is terrible. The noise is also terrible. But after all, this is documentation photography so a little noise is not so bad.
Yet what would I really like to have in a new camera that is fixing to do nothing but screw me economically? I would like to have a camera that auto focuses better in less optimal light and I would like to be able to shoot at higher ISOs so I could get the shutter speed up. I might give 500 bucks for a camera that would do that, fer me.
Also, I would like to have a 400mm telephoto lens that I could hand hold just like I do my 70-300. Then I would also like a 150mm macro, maybe, but that would be a total luxury. So maybe not.
Here’s what I’m talking about in terms of the E 330s limitations. Inexplicably, this Northern Parula showed up in the back yard today. This is bizarre because the only times previously Parulas turned up is maybe once or twice during spring migration. He, the Parula, took a nice bath in the sprinkler which I had running illegally since it’s not my day to water. This picture, about the best I could get of this Northern Parula, underscores all the limitations of the E 330.
The transition from the C 5060WZ to the E 330 was costly. Besides the kit lenses, 200 bucks, I have the 14-54, the 35 macro and the 70-300. Those three lenses set me back 800 bucks. So total, plus all the lenses and the E 330 body, I have about 1500 bucks invested which includes a trip or two to Olympus Repair for the E 330. Hold it. I also have an FL 36 flash. That’s another 150 bucks. So that’s like about 1650 bucks invested. For me, that is a huge sum because I have never gotten a nickle back on that investment. Noper. Contrast that with my 500 dollar Roosian microscope. That Roosian microscope paid for itself maybe a tousand times over. But those cameras and lenses are a total drag on my economy.
As documented on this venue, the E 330 got off to a bad start. The first year it was mostly broken. But since then it has been OK. OK if you don’t mind gluing its rubber armor back on regularly. Plus the ISO limit is around 400, and not good then. Plus the auto focus is atrocious. Mine will not ever, for example, auto focus on a bird on a wire. It simply will not do that. It can’t do that, ever. If I want to take a picture of a bird on a wire, I need to focus manually.
Uh. The E 330 is an OK camera for taking pictures of static or nearly static life as I know it, in good light, so long as there are no wires to confuse the camera. The fact is, despite the crumby auto focus, it even takes OK pictures of fairly lively subjects (bees and such) in good light. But if the light is marginal, like for example under a tree canopy, times wax tough. Correct, the auto focus is terrible. The noise is also terrible. But after all, this is documentation photography so a little noise is not so bad.
Yet what would I really like to have in a new camera that is fixing to do nothing but screw me economically? I would like to have a camera that auto focuses better in less optimal light and I would like to be able to shoot at higher ISOs so I could get the shutter speed up. I might give 500 bucks for a camera that would do that, fer me.
Also, I would like to have a 400mm telephoto lens that I could hand hold just like I do my 70-300. Then I would also like a 150mm macro, maybe, but that would be a total luxury. So maybe not.
Here’s what I’m talking about in terms of the E 330s limitations. Inexplicably, this Northern Parula showed up in the back yard today. This is bizarre because the only times previously Parulas turned up is maybe once or twice during spring migration. He, the Parula, took a nice bath in the sprinkler which I had running illegally since it’s not my day to water. This picture, about the best I could get of this Northern Parula, underscores all the limitations of the E 330.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, July 19, 2009
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