dissing the digital

The other day, I discovered that my Olympus digital camera was taking fuzzy photos. It almost looked like a haze filter had been applied to a number of photos I had taken. I didn't really notice it while I was taking them, but it was obvious when I downloaded them to my PC. Aggravated, I discovered that my son had gotten his paws on the camera at some point, when his paws weren't exactly clean. Why did he feel the need to touch the actual lens of the camera? Who knows why kids do the things they do. All I know is that now I have a camera with a filthy lens.

I've tried wiping it clean with special lens cleaners, which seemed to have gotten the majority of the crud off of the middle of the lens, but the edges are impossible to clean, so I guess I'll just have to live with slight haze around the very edge of my photos.

Or I could just get a new camera. I've been unimpressed with my digital Olympus since I bought it, so it sure wouldn't bother me to be carrying around something new, and to avoid potential future hassles with Olympus tech support. My specific model is an SP-320. It could have been a decent package for the price - 7 megapixel, near-SLR adjustments, and it's a good size - not too large and not too small. I have used it indoors and outdoors, mostly while hiking or sightseeing, and for the occasional family gathering. It takes great close-up skin tone shots. But it has been a problem since day one. For one thing, low light shots are nearly impossible to get right, even with all of the built-in settings and manual exposure adjustments. The video capture feature is convenient, but if you want to use the high quality setting, it can only capture 20 seconds of video at a time - lame! When I bought a 1Gb memory card for the camera, it rendered the card useless after about a month. I can't even use it anymore. The Olympus Master software is buggy as hell, too. You're better off just connecting the camera to the PC as a USB storage device driver.

I sent in the camera and the memory to Olympus for repair, and they supposedly replaced the main circuit board in the camera, but they just sent the bogus memory card right back to me, unrepaired. I was steamed. When I called them about it, they apologized and said they would ship out the replacement memory card right away. A few weeks later, I received an email stating that my replacement card was on back order. I called and they offered me a reconditioned 1Gb card instead. I said "no thanks." I originally bought it new, so I want a new replacement with full warranty. Then they offered two new 512Mb cards instead. I said okay. They called me the next day and said that they found some 1Gb cards and were sending me one. It arrived a week later, but it was a reconditioned card. I should have called them back and complained, but I got tired of dealing with it. I should probably sell the whole kit and caboodle before it breaks again.

So at some point in the near future, I'm going to go ahead and get myself a digital SLR. Enough with this low budget approach. If you want stellar pictures, you need a stellar camera. And I will avoid Olympus like the plague. I'll be looking at something like the digital SLR Nikon cameras which have a better reputation. I'm sure that any digital camera is going to have its occasional defect or odd problem, but at least with companies like Canon or Nikon I'll know that I can get decent customer service.