For current owners: If you could do it over again, would you still
buy this camera?
Here's the story of a brand new 828 owner.
First I'm gonna bore you with a little history.
start of boring history
I've used the FujiFilm 6900Z for over three years, and used it a lot. Made very satisfying pictures with it. Since four years I've been reading about every review that appears about prosumer cams. I have no favor about whatever branch. Many times I came to the conclusion that the perfect camera didn't exist, but it took me two years to realize.
The Fuji had troubles with lowlight focussing, has horrible shot-to-shot times and my one battery made me anxious on LCD use. It had lots of nice things (image burst of 5 HQ images was a nice thing, but took the cam 35 seconds to store them), but I need the speed and good lowlight focussing so what was I to do?
I must admit I underestimated the sony 717. By now, I regret that I didn't buy it long time ago.
end of boring history
Made the 8MP camera comparison (with 717 in mind). The speed and lowlight focus made me decide between Olympus C8080WZ and the 828. Comparing the specifications they were about equal to
my favor. The slight image flaws of the sony vs. the shorter zoomrange of the Oly. Went to the store and held both in my hand. No doubt I was going to buy the 828!! Saw the 828 lying next to Minolta's A2 and the look of that cam was a laugh compared to sony's. I probably don't even want to be seen in public holding that A2 ;-)
So the 828 need to be bought. Found a decent one, second hand. I bought it only one day ago, but since then I've been shooting with it, like Forrest Gump kept on running. I'm flabbergasted with the hologram AF assist in complete darkness, and also by the shot-to-shot speed even using flash. For those who haven't read my boring history part, I came from far being used to wait for 9 seconds to be able to do another flash shot.
So I've had a lot of fun already. The lcd gave me nice realtime information about parameter changing and in combination with the swivel body I don't need the EVF anymore. Using the menu was very logical and I doubt that I'm ever going to be using the usermanual. Add the excellent battery power to that and I was about to think that my perfect camera actually does exist!
That was until looking at the images on the monitor.
By now I've seen all my snapshots and captures so far. Its too fast to say anything about color reproduction and stuff. Noise I don't even look for, I won't make lots of very large prints and know what software can do about that. Off course I searched for PF/CA at 100% magnification. I found some. Wasn't surprised, I think I broke every rule of preventing it and I knew it was 'part of the deal'. There is no perfect cam, right? Sizing down to 5 or 3 MP (those are my printing sizes, I don't actually need the 8MP) made it hardly visible.
At last I was curious about what that famous Shay's action can do. Bought it. Used it. Smiled. This thing does what the Olympus probably does in-camera! By now I'm actually wondering why this 828 would
not be the perfect camera for me. The only thing that could trouble me is the size, for taking it on holidays. Then again, its a camera, not a pocketknife.
To answer the question: I don't regret buying it, but keep in mind that bought it only yesterday.
