Oly SP350

aside from my other requests about Canon's

Im aware that everyone has been getting great results with the 4040 through to 8080 series cameras, but is the SP350 offering the same performance?

My Sony P10 has died and i wsnt getting great results with it anyway. Is the SP350 a big jump from point and shoot as i was mostly doing?

Albion,

I've been very happy with my SP-350 but really don't have much to compare it against because it is my first underwater camera. Here are the best of my first shots with the camera in Cozumel. http://www.cupsonline.net/MembersShowOff/M...34/Default.aspx

From what I've read and experienced, every point and shoot has some issues with focus lock, shoot time or write-time between RAW photos. None of them is going to bring you to the performance level of a DSLR. However, here are some things I like about my camera...and some things I dislike.

1. RAW mode - after shooting both RAW and JPEG I can't imagine owning an underwater camera without RAW capability.

2. Battery life - I'm currently able to fill a 1G card (86 RAW images) on one set of AA 2500mah batteries.

3. Write time is 7 seconds with high speed XD card memory on RAW setting. This is measured with a full dump of the flash with fresh batteries.

4. Focus/shoot times underwater seem acceptable. In the clear waters of Cozumel I hardly noticed a difference between its ability below the water and above it. This kind of struck me as odd. Nonetheless, I was delighted to discover that it performed reasonably well at 60+ feet down. To add to the difficulty, every dive in Cozumel had current. Many times I was just drifting by and would have to slow my drift, focus and shoot. At other times, you were just at the mercy of the current and had to shoot what you could, when you could.

5. Flexibility - For a point and shoot perspective, I've never seen a more configurable camera. It even has 4 customizable user program modes. It has a full manual mode and it even has a manual focus mode (I'll touch on this later in the dislke area). There isn't a setting that you can't control. Things like white-balance, exposure, ...even manual flash control. The flexibility of the camera is by far its strongest suit.

6. Cheap - Price-wise I got the camera, camera housing, the fl-20 flash, flash housing for a little more than I would have paid for the Canon A620 with a housing. Additionally, it has a ton of accessories above water.

7. TTL flash control. In the beginning I wasn't sure how well this would work but again was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked in Cozumel.

Things that I don't like:

1. It doesn't like to focus real well on fast moving subjects. This is true even above water. An example might be a breaching whale. In order to capture this moment you would likely have to stick the camera into manual focus mode. At the very least you would have to select a spot and pre-focus by halfway depressing the shutter or by selecting the cameras pre-configured sports mode. There are a few point and shoots that could capture this moment without going through those kind of gymnastics.

2. Pre-configured modes - Don't get me wrong here, its nice having 25 customized shooting modes. What I don't like is you can't tweak any of the settings in these modes. So for example...you choose sports mode and you want a RAW photo...it won't let you select it if its preset to JPEG.

3. Manual Focus mode - Olympus gets an A for allowing you to select manual focus but a D for usability. If you're in manual configuration mode you're arrow keys are used for moving aperture and shutter speeds up and down. If you place the camera in manual focus modes the up/down keys now change the focus leaving you no way to change the shutter speed. This is okay if you think to preset your shutter speed before going into manual focus mode. The 2nd issue I have with this mode is trying to gauge the focus by the LCD is impossible even while sitting at your kitchen table. The camera does bring up a distance meter which is somewhat helpful but its really only useful at its maximum focus distance of 15ft. The only other thing you could do is preset a distance of choice...like 6ft and estimate how far you are from the subject. In the end, and at my skill level, its really useless for the most part.

4. Camera has a cheap plastic feel. I've not had anything break yet and it did survive a partial flood in the pool where the camera got pretty much soaked. I did have a problem resetting the camera once when I cleaned the lens (has to be cleaned with the camera turned on). It kept coming up with an error. I took the batteries out and tapped on the side of the lens and it reset. I've not had any issues since because now I treat the camera very gently during the cleaning process.

Okay...in the I wish I had catagory -

Faster lens 2.0 to 11.0 aperture would be awesome.

That's about it. Overall, I am thrilled with my choice of cameras and I don't think my skill will require me to upgrade for several years. I've gotten very few out of focus shots although, like all P&S users, I have missed some shots due to subject movement along with a slight shutter lag.

Later,

Gary