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Comment of the Fortnight
15 March 1998
The New Digital Camera

I decided to move up (and down) from my Kodak DC120 to an Olympus D-500L digital camera.

It's a move down because the resolution drops from 1280 x 960 to 1024 x 768 pixels.

It's a move up because:

A Tale of Service

The store I went to didn't have the camera in stock; they said they would order it from the warehouse. To my surprise, the camera came in within two days. I picked it up on Saturday, 14 March 1998. I was put off a bit by the fact that the camera came in a box that had been Scotch®-taped shut, the batteries were already installed, and the lens cap was missing.

I also bought an 8-MB memory card for picture storage and an AC adapter. While downloading the first pictures that evening (with the AC adapter attached) I found that the batteries were still draining. On a hunch, I took out the batteries and plugged in the adapter -- and nothing happened.

I took the camera back to the store on 15 March 1998. The salesman (who hadn't been there on Saturday when I picked up the camera) told me that the camera had been a demo unit in a local store. He also confirmed that the adapter was bad, not the camera.

He then said he would order a new camera from the warehouse, which would take a couple of weeks to arrive, but I could keep the demo unit to learn how the camera worked until the new one arrived. I thought that was a great resolution to the problem, and I went home and did a few more pictures. You can see my two days' worth of photographic experimentation if you're so inclined.

A Quick Evaluation

I like the camera's user interface; it seems faster to set the flash and macro mode than on the Kodak. I am definitely not used to the Autofocus yet. The picture quality seems to be excellent. I'll be seeing how well it does with action shots in low light levels this coming weekend at an amateur wrestling tournament.

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