Olympus SP-500 Review

I bought my SP-500 three days ago. If it were a film camera I would be broke by now. I am taking shots of everything. This is how I know that the author’s review is dead on.
The first thing I noticed when I took it out of the box is the cheap feel of the camera body. This might be due to having previously worked with only metal-body cameras, especially 35-mm SLRs. The next thing I noticed was the inconsistent focusing. The next thing was the tendency of the camera to look for the point of focus. The most annoying thing was the fact that there is NO IMAGE STABILIZATION. (I suppose if I were a better photographer that wouldn’t be so much of an issue.) If I can press that shutter button just right there is no problem, but it seems to me that it takes way too much pressure to get off a decent shot, and with no image stabilization, that just throws everything out of focus. Another thing that is annoying is that dangling lens cap.
All that being said, I am taking the best shots I have ever taken in my life, and I am a digital-camera virgin, knowing nothing about these things. I got the rust on a water tower an eighth of a mile away on a cloudy, windy day (10x optical zoom is fantastic). I got the pores and blackheads in the face skin of a friend from across the living room. I got closeups of my little plastic dolls, 2 inches high, that show details I cannot see with the naked eye.
Using a tripod eliminated much of the image stabilization problem; now I have to get a better tripod to eliminate it totally. The button is just hard enough to push that it knocks the focus out by a few pixelwidths and shakes everything. Small prints look in focus, but the blurriness is apparent in the larger images because that slight pressure causes the plastic parts of the tripod to flex. I am certain there has to be a “correct” angle to press that button, because sometimes the action is smooth and easy and does not jar the camera.
There is a focus function in which the camera predicts the next point of a moving object and places the focus at that point. If the dog’s tail is wagging, the camera just will not focus on the place that I want.
All of this is in what I will call “snapshot” mode, without using the many powerful features that I am sure will enhance my experience with this camera, so I am willing to consider that much of the annoyance is due to my lack of familiarity of what’s available. For example, the “portrait” mode automatically sets the f-stop so that the foreground is sharp and the background is softer, and “landscape” mode sets the f-stop and shutter speed so that from the lens to infinity is in focus. I haven’t done any of that yet.
Why did I choose the SP-500 camera? A few times I have used the camera the boss at work has,an elderly Olympus Camedia C-700 UZ 2MP, and decided that for right now I couldn’t live without the zoom. I would have just bought a used C-700, but I also lusted after the increased megapixel content because some of the shots I take go on the cover of the little tabloid newspaper (that’s the business) and I want them to look better. They’re good at 2 MP, they’ll be better at 6 MP.
I am already shopping for my next digital camera. The hunt might take me to an expensive digital SLR, and it might just take me to a camera like the SP-500 but that has image stabilization. But I am going to learn this camera inside and out so that I will know what it is I want and don’t want. The SP-500 has enough of the good stuff that it’s a keeper, especially with that 10x zoom. It’s just not a camera you could hand to a stranger at the zoo and get him to take a snapshot of you and the kids in front of the tiger. But you could get a fine, magazine-quality shot of the tiger yourself.

Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.

I bought this camera after doing some research and thought it might be a good deal for the money being as it is a 6mp.
This camera is not even a good point and shoot! No image stabilization and a shutter speed of 1/1000. Even in the sport mode in full daylight there will be blurred images.
Getting clear, sharp images without a tripod is nearly impossible even for a still life.
Do not believe the postive reviews! They are lies planted by salesman who sell this camera.
I no longer buy Olympus or from Best Buy.

Rating: 3 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful.