amateriat
We're all light!
(Bet you didn't think I, of all people, would have one, eh?)
Galfriend's elder son (he's a Senior at Vassar this semester) came to me with an urgent request: to retrieve some important files from his iPod (with a dying hard disk) to a CD-R or someplace other than his lame 'pod (which, by modern tech terms is pretty old...my iPod Photo, the last 'Pod available with FireWire interface, is a youngster by comparison). I gave it the (ahem) college try, then hit on an old techie trick I've rarely used: I put the iPod in the freezer section of our 'fridge for about 20 minutes, since the thing was pretty warm/hot when he handed it to me. There are other details involved, but to keep a long story short, the trick worked, and he was over the moon. "If you need any favor lat me know..."
I couldn't think of anything immediately, but then I remembered something.
"Do you still have that Olympus digital with you?"
"Yeah, I do", he said, after thinking for a moment about it. "I'll bring it up."
I just wanted to borrow it for a while. I recommended it to his Dad as a gift about three years ago, and then (in a fit of enlightened self-interest) put it through its paces to make sure everything was in order.
It's a C-8080. I recommended it because it was about the only digital camera of the moment I would be caught dead shooting with, at least based on its ergonomics and specs, more-or-less in that order. I took it for a brief tour-of-duty and fell in love with it, which was somewhat unexpected. I loved the form-factor, the control layout (mostly), the reasonably-fast buffer (even shooting RAW), and the red-eye-free flash operation, with the option of off-camera flash with the conventional hot shoe. A bonus was the swiveling LCD and solid construction. Olympus never made a digital camera like this before, and, frankly, hasn't made one like it since. (Of course, neither has anyone else...and I'm including Canon's G9 here, too.)
Having the camera back in my hands after this rather long hiatus, the familiarity is comforting. When news hit about the new "mirror-less" 4/3 sensor design, the first thing that I thought of was, "Wouldn't it be cool if Olympus made a somewhat thinner version of the 8080, with a crazy-higher ISO rating?" I wasn't thinking about dSLRs because, frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about them, at all. The 8080 represented a serious digital "Third Way", where serious photography (however you care to define it) could find its way with a serious tool which broke the mold: solid, versatile, precision, but smaller, lighter, and certainly stealthier than your standard-issue Pro dSLR (which, to me, is among the more-obnoxious photographic instruments of recent times...and, no, I've never had someone smush a Speed-Graphic in my face as a child). The fact that there's a Magnum shooter using an 8080 in the field says enough for me, but I probably grokked this camera's goodness before he did. Alas, I don't shoot for Magnum...
Not the latest, or with the "mostest" megapixels, yada, yada. yada. I don't #µ©%√π care.
Of course, I'm coming from the perspective of a dedicated film-shooter, and not about to change that for the near future at least (well, as long as I can buy the stuff without selling a kidney...).
And, I ask: why aren't there more (any?) digital cameras line this out there right now? The only other digicam I can stand is my little Casio EX-850. I generally dislike SLRs now, dSLRs in particular, and "pro" dSLRS, to borrow a CIA term, with extreme prejudice.
What to do with a guy like me, except shoot me? (Don't go there...)
- Barrett
Galfriend's elder son (he's a Senior at Vassar this semester) came to me with an urgent request: to retrieve some important files from his iPod (with a dying hard disk) to a CD-R or someplace other than his lame 'pod (which, by modern tech terms is pretty old...my iPod Photo, the last 'Pod available with FireWire interface, is a youngster by comparison). I gave it the (ahem) college try, then hit on an old techie trick I've rarely used: I put the iPod in the freezer section of our 'fridge for about 20 minutes, since the thing was pretty warm/hot when he handed it to me. There are other details involved, but to keep a long story short, the trick worked, and he was over the moon. "If you need any favor lat me know..."
I couldn't think of anything immediately, but then I remembered something.
"Do you still have that Olympus digital with you?"
"Yeah, I do", he said, after thinking for a moment about it. "I'll bring it up."
I just wanted to borrow it for a while. I recommended it to his Dad as a gift about three years ago, and then (in a fit of enlightened self-interest) put it through its paces to make sure everything was in order.
It's a C-8080. I recommended it because it was about the only digital camera of the moment I would be caught dead shooting with, at least based on its ergonomics and specs, more-or-less in that order. I took it for a brief tour-of-duty and fell in love with it, which was somewhat unexpected. I loved the form-factor, the control layout (mostly), the reasonably-fast buffer (even shooting RAW), and the red-eye-free flash operation, with the option of off-camera flash with the conventional hot shoe. A bonus was the swiveling LCD and solid construction. Olympus never made a digital camera like this before, and, frankly, hasn't made one like it since. (Of course, neither has anyone else...and I'm including Canon's G9 here, too.)
Having the camera back in my hands after this rather long hiatus, the familiarity is comforting. When news hit about the new "mirror-less" 4/3 sensor design, the first thing that I thought of was, "Wouldn't it be cool if Olympus made a somewhat thinner version of the 8080, with a crazy-higher ISO rating?" I wasn't thinking about dSLRs because, frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about them, at all. The 8080 represented a serious digital "Third Way", where serious photography (however you care to define it) could find its way with a serious tool which broke the mold: solid, versatile, precision, but smaller, lighter, and certainly stealthier than your standard-issue Pro dSLR (which, to me, is among the more-obnoxious photographic instruments of recent times...and, no, I've never had someone smush a Speed-Graphic in my face as a child). The fact that there's a Magnum shooter using an 8080 in the field says enough for me, but I probably grokked this camera's goodness before he did. Alas, I don't shoot for Magnum...
Not the latest, or with the "mostest" megapixels, yada, yada. yada. I don't #µ©%√π care.
Of course, I'm coming from the perspective of a dedicated film-shooter, and not about to change that for the near future at least (well, as long as I can buy the stuff without selling a kidney...).
And, I ask: why aren't there more (any?) digital cameras line this out there right now? The only other digicam I can stand is my little Casio EX-850. I generally dislike SLRs now, dSLRs in particular, and "pro" dSLRS, to borrow a CIA term, with extreme prejudice.
What to do with a guy like me, except shoot me? (Don't go there...)
- Barrett
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