I bought the olympus 8080 camera after 2 months of survey. (for 700 euro). Apart of visiting shops and talking with friends who bought a dig camera recently, I read all the tests of the 8 megapixelcam. on dpreview (which were very, very helpfull as were all the opinions on this site.
At last for me (with a visual handicap...) it was obvious that olympus gave me the best camera to handle (menu's and ergomics) there is only the disadvantage of the rel.small zoom capacity but everyone who complains about that would not have bought the camera in the first place.
For me picture quality, battery life, its robust body and its speed are more important than increased zoom capacity apart of the mentioned ergonomics given my eye problems. For this reason I am also completely dependent on the auto focus and so far I have no complaints about the performance of auto focus, although I was worried about it given some opinions in that area..
I have spend almost 40 hours reading the manual over and over again (and yes, I printed the manual from the CDROM on 300 A4 pages.. and as I could print it out on a large letterfont it was an advantage to have the manual digital...)
With all the "trial and error" lessons in- and outside, macro and landscapes, using "P" settings and testing other manual possibilities I became stunned of what is possible with the camera and for all users who start with the 8080 : it is a very good investment to make a study of the manual: go "behind" the automatic features and try to understand the logic of the designers.
Problems:
The power button (this was descibed in the opinions before) is located at the wrong place: it happens again and again that I shut down the camera while It was not my intention to do so. Annoying!
I bought the original olympusbag which could have been a little bit bigger: you need at least some experience to put the camera in it in a fast way.
At last for me (with a visual handicap...) it was obvious that olympus gave me the best camera to handle (menu's and ergomics) there is only the disadvantage of the rel.small zoom capacity but everyone who complains about that would not have bought the camera in the first place.
For me picture quality, battery life, its robust body and its speed are more important than increased zoom capacity apart of the mentioned ergonomics given my eye problems. For this reason I am also completely dependent on the auto focus and so far I have no complaints about the performance of auto focus, although I was worried about it given some opinions in that area..
I have spend almost 40 hours reading the manual over and over again (and yes, I printed the manual from the CDROM on 300 A4 pages.. and as I could print it out on a large letterfont it was an advantage to have the manual digital...)
With all the "trial and error" lessons in- and outside, macro and landscapes, using "P" settings and testing other manual possibilities I became stunned of what is possible with the camera and for all users who start with the 8080 : it is a very good investment to make a study of the manual: go "behind" the automatic features and try to understand the logic of the designers.
Problems:
The power button (this was descibed in the opinions before) is located at the wrong place: it happens again and again that I shut down the camera while It was not my intention to do so. Annoying!
I bought the original olympusbag which could have been a little bit bigger: you need at least some experience to put the camera in it in a fast way.