This was originally going to be a post linking to pictures I took of the new baby ducks in our apartment complex, but unfortunately those pictures will never see the light of day (or even the pale glow of the internet). For whatever reason, my SmartMedia card failed or was destroyed when I tried to get the pictures off, leaving me not only without duck pictures but in need of a new high-capacity SmartMedia card (as the 8 and 16 MB cards aren't quite as useful as the 64 MB that's now defunct). But the geek in me said, “Why buy new media for $20 when you could buy a new camera for $500 instead?”
Okay, so it's actually been building up for a while—I'm not that far gone. My Olympus D-460 has been a fine camera (and I'm not just saying that because Laura is reading), but as I've grown slightly in my photography I find myself hitting the limits of the D-460. Most glaringly, 1.3 Megapixels just isn't enough, as I learned when I tried to enlarge some of my favorite Hawaii pictures. But I'm also at the point where I'd like to play around with more manual controls sometimes, and I'd like more zoom as well.
Armed with that knowledge I struck out into the web, where I quickly learned that I am (or at least have aspirations of being) a “prosumer”—or a serious amateur in non-marketing-speak. The really tough part is deciding what form factor I want though. Everything I've read suggests that I really need a camera with either a fixed-zoom or interchangeable lens to get the full serious-amateur range. But that means a bulkier camera, and I've been spoiled by the easy-to-sling-around D-460.
In the end, I think I'm going to go with a high-end retractable-zoom-lens camera. Will it limit me? Probably. But ultimately I think I'm always going to want to have a small camera that I can use for point-and-shoot (but can at the same time rise to the challenge of an unexpected opportunity for a better shot), so even if I decide to really get serious down the road a camera like that will always have its niche for me. Besides, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to shell out the cash for a digital SLR (interchangeable lens) camera, and I suspect that a fixed-zoom camera would ultimately be unsatisfying if I grow, and unsatisfying at the more point-and-shoot end either way.
The current contenders, from my reading, are:
The first two are smaller and lighter, which appeals to me, but it remains to be seen whether I actually care when I'm holding them in my hands. All have at least 4x optical zoom, which is better than the D-460, all are 7 MP, which will work just fine for all my uses, and all are somewhere around $500 dollars. I'm leaning toward the Olympus, partially because I was so pleased with the D-460 and partially for the extra zoom (although I'd take a slight hit on landscapes with the 38mm min (max?) at the other end), but I'll have to play with it to see if the reported auto-focus difficulties will hurt its point-and-shoot ability in normal use.
Next stop: the camera store, to see what I can see. Advice and personal experiences welcome.
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