In the end, the attraction of having the latest fancy model and not needing to lug around / maintain a separate bulky waterproof case for the Canon won the day, and we are now proud owners of the Olympus µTough 8000!
We're quite happy with it, the camera is extremely convenient for frequent beach-goers. I get a huge kick out of being able to just jump into the water, without needing to worry about fiddly things like opening and closing the case to put the camera in / download photos / charge camera, or worrying about the seal. We definitely carried the camera around a lot more and took tons more photos with the waterproof Olympus, than say if we had bought a separate casing for our existing camera.
If waterproofing is not something you're looking for however, I still maintain that the Canon Ixus is a better camera than the Olympus in terms of shutter lag (shorter), software (faster response time), focusing ability (better selection of focus points), ease of use (more intuitive and dummy proof), image & colour capture (more realistic and balanced), design (less fiddly)... ie everything!
Just to give a simple illustration, take night shots for example. I tried the "automatic", "night scene" and "fireworks" scene settings for the Olympus, but the best I could come up with (even after using a table and timer) was this:
Using the Canon Ixus however, the "P" setting was sufficient to give me a much more focused and colour temperature balanced photo:
The camera software, layout/type of buttons and programme selection is also a lot more well thought through on the Ixus, and definitely more user-friendly. For example, the Ixus has a simple 3 step selector (video/scene/P) while the Olympus has a complicated dial which is difficult to turn and very fiddly especially underwater. The dial also has what I consider "useless" functions such as the Beauty option, which causes delays in software response time if you accidentally turn to it. When in the "scene mode", to change the scene you have to either turn the dial to another mode and then back to scene mode, or fiddle with 3-4 different buttons in as many steps. Extremely cumbersome when doing underwater snorkeling and you want to change from "underwater portrait" to "underwater wide".
Functions that one normally takes for granted in the Ixus, are also missing in the Olympus. Examples include: Auto-rotation of photos, LCD brightness adjustments, manual white balance calibration, power saving settings...
Don't get me wrong, the Olympus *is* a good camera. Just that compared to the Ixus..... Well we don't regret our purchase, because it was the best decision given the options available to us. But if you're getting a normal everyday camera, I would recommend the Canon over the Olympus. And if you need a waterproof one and can wait a few months (or make friends with someone in Japan/US), do consider the Powershot D10 which will hopefully come to Singapore some time soon.
More on using the Olympus for snorkeling photos next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment