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Olympus C-3040Z
2001—2004
About 20,000 images taken with this camera
My first camera was also a digital camera, an Olympus C3040Z.
I had always enjoyed photography but film-based photography was (and still is) too expensive.
I bought it back in September 2001 and it cost me a pretty penny,
more than entry level DSLR cameras with lenses cost these days.
It only has a 3M pixel sensor, which isn't too bad for most purposes but very low by today's standards.
I damaged this camera late 2004 while descending from a tree, resulting in problems with the lens being stuck.
Later I managed to get it to work most of the time but I can't use the zoom any more
as this will cause the lens internally to dosmount somewhere and then it can't be shut down any more.
| Positives |
Negatives |
| Reasonable image quality |
Slow to startup |
| Good flash |
Slow zoom and focus |
| Standard AA batteries |
Inadequate macro (minimum 20cm) |
Konica-Minolta DiMage Z3
2004—2008
>130,000 photos taken (and counting)
I was in a bit of a rush to get another camera, after damaging my first one, and settled on a Z3.
I was tossing up between this and a Panasonic with a similar feature set
but chose the Konica-Minolta because it used standard AA batteries
(for which I had two sets of NiMH rechargables).
Its still only a 4M pixel camera and a few months later they released the 6M pixel Z6 which I just missed out on.
| Positives |
Negatives |
| Good zoom (12×; 420mm equiv) |
Poor image quality on anything other than base ISO50 (terrible noise on ISO200, even worse at 400) |
| Fast startup and zoom |
Terrible low-light performance (slow focus seek, wrong auto WB, noisy images, etc) |
| Fast focus in good light |
Hopeless flash, useful to only 2m unzoomed, 1m when zoomed |
| Good macro (to 1cm; about 1:1) |
Poor build (always had intermittent problems but its starting to fall apart now too) |
| Standard AA batteries |
Next Camera?
2008?—
Soon I'm going to buy a new camera, almost certainly this year (before the spring orchids).
My first choice was a FujiFilm
FinePix S100FS because its a proper attempt at an all-round camera with DSLR quality.
Its classed as a bridge camera (between point-and-shoot and SLR cameras) and the specs are generally good.
It has a 28mm (wide-angle) to 400mm (big zoom) equivalent lens and a physically large sensor
(for light capturing ability, image quality, low light performance).
Now that reviews are starting to emerge, its not all that great.
It has significant chromatic abberation (fringing) which isn't expected on a camera of this level.
It also has a relatively weak flash, rated to 4m with auto ISO, which is about what my
Konica-Minolta is rated at and I know how terrible that is in the real world.
Macro mode is also not very good - I had difficulty trying to focus on anything really close with
a bit of zoom so I couldn't get near 1:1.
Good macro is important to me.
Next most camera brands announced the release of new low-end DSLR cameras with live view.
The fact you couldn't use the camera without squeezing your head around it back to take photos
really annoys me and I can't understand why its taken so long to eventuate.
I assume its because digital SLR cameras were mainly being bought by those crossing over from
film and they didn't know any better.
The next annoyance was that some of these new cameras just seemed to have it as a gimmick,
with one you can't auto-focus when in live view mode!
The best of the pack, for me, was the Sony A350.
It has the best resolution and, more importantly, the fastest and best live view (complete with flip-out LCD screen).
Now the reviews are starting to show possible poor image quality at high ISO settings.
Another problem I have with just about any camera that comes out now is they use Li-Ion batteries.
These are proprietary designs and, although you can get third-party batteries, standard AA are better in several ways.
The only reason to use these Li-Ion batteries is they hold more power than equivalent sized NiMH ones.
This should not even be a consideration for large-bodied cameras like DSLR's and it really annoys me.
Having standards is so much easier - I can (and do) use the same batteries in my camera or in my torch.
I have two sets of 2500mAh batteries (which I need as I can take 1000 photos in a day) that cost around $20 per set.
The Li-Ion batteries have about half the capacity and cost 2–3 times as much.
I guess I'll just have to learn to live with it.
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