Tuesday, December 8, 2009

ON PHOTOS ~ Pretty Please...



See that beauty above? I can't stop thinking about it. *swoon*

Over Thanksgiving my folks broke a cardinal rule with me which is to spoil my X-mas present surprise. I hate spoilers of any sort. Especially with gifts. But I forgave them since they said they wanted to give me a new digital camera.

Whoopee!!!! That's what Andy's reaction was too because for the last few months I have been complaining to him about my antiquated camera and this lets him off the hook. Well, at least in part. You see - my selection as of now is a pricey one. We may need to supplement the cost of this gift a bit.

I am a big fan of Olympus. I have an old, bulky, limited zoom, minimal pixel edition whose memory cards have a finite capacity. But it captures fantastic quality images. I respect their brand and have never had a functional issue with their product. So it is only natural that I would turn to Olympus again for my upgrade. The camera pictured above is the Stylus 9000 and it runs about $300. It has a 10x zoom with a wide lens and 12 megapixels and allows for panoramic shots. Other than that it contains all of the same bells and whistles that the next model down does.

I went to Best Buy to check it out and they didn't have it there. They had a lower model 7000 and I must say - I was disappointed in the operating button next to the display screen. Most are circular where you click on the top or side points to maneuver around. Olympus uses a cross/square design which is less smooth. Then again, my current camera is similar in design and I hardly noticed until I looked at it. I do like the website styled menu screen with icons making it simpler to understand. My sister-in-law has another Olympus model herself and her pictures are always terrific too so I know the quality is consistent.

What do you recommend? Are you an Olympus point & click user? Or do you swear by another brand? What complaints and praises do you have with your camera? I need as much input as possible so that the folks can get that present purchased in time for Christmas morning!

13 comments:

Sandy Nawrot said...

I'm not all that picky when it comes to my cameras...if they work, then I'm happy. My old nasty Kodak broke last year, so Robert got me a Sony Cybershot for Christmas and I love it. The pictures turn out great, there are lots of different options, the screen is big, and it's small enough to fit in my pocket.

Susan said...

I've not had any experience with Olympus, so I'm no help there. I'm with Sandy...my next point&shoot will be a Cybershot. I've read very good things about that one. My DSLR is a Nikon D50 which they no longer make, but it takes great pics. We got our son and DIL a Nikon D3000 for Christmas. It's really sweet...hard to keep my hands of it!

Sadako said...

Mine is a Sony that I've had since '05. Yeah, I'm not really all that up to date. :D

Also wanted to mention that on my blog Get a Pencil and a Casebook I did a Rudolph post, and I thought of you, since...well...ya know. :D

Penny said...

awwwww it's a beaut :)

kayerj said...

I don't know anything about camera's, I have a canon point and shoot--I hope you find what you want.

Margot said...

I'm not much help in this department either. I could use some help myself. I have a Sony point and shoot and I don't always get good results. I probably need better photo editing software than what is on my mac.

But I do have a piece of advice: get the one you really want even if it means extra money. Scrimp on something else for a while. Justify it by all the pictures you take, and will take in the future, for all those great articles you write. You know, like a business expense.

Looking forward to seeing pictures of your final decision/gift.

Janet said...

I'm a Canon girl all the way...well...except for the Sony lmao!!!

Linda Bob Grifins Korbetis Hall said...

I don't use camera myself, my son has one which is $600, canon brand, with expensive lens, not to scare you off the feet..in general, before you buy this stuff, you do online research and read reviews, also look at recommendations from consumer reports...

Good luck. every brand is great as long as you like it.

Patty Reiser said...

Well Molly I think you have picked a fine camera. I did a little research and compared it to the popular brands like Nikon and Canon.
Do some looking around. I was able to find it online for $234.
Can't wait to see the photos you capture on Christmas morning!

Mike said...

Oh, I cannot help you here! I am not much of a photographer!

Richard said...

Oooh that looks lovely!

I have a Canon atm and I'm extremely happy with it.

If I were in the market for a new camera I'd be looking at companies with a reputation for making good cameras: e.g. Canon, Nikon, Olympus among others.

I've tried ones by companies which thought to branch out into cameras from other digital products and I've generally found their products lacking (naming no names).

My first camera (back in the days when we still used film!) was an Olympus. Wonderful thing it was. It was even submerged under water for several hours once and still works perfectly!

Candy Minx said...

ooh ooh what an awesome gift! I like both the Sony cameras and Olympus. There was a time when I was solely hooked on trad Olympus. Sony makes a good camera though!

Looking forward to all the pictures we'll see here in the future!

:)

lareine said...

That would be a great Christmas gift! Yipeeee! I believe Olympus is a good brand, we have an old model (as in, like a model 5 years ago!) and it takes great photos, until now!!!