While fawning over the Fuji S9000, Sony R1 and Samsung 815, the Oly SP 500 almost seems to have gone unnoticed...is this the model to replace the 8080???:?:?

Hi Marsha7: This is the 10x ultrazoom to replace the C770 & C765. It is not the wide-angle replacement for the C8080.

SyevenR-

I agree with you. I have visualized the SP-5 as just a very slightly updated C -765/C-770 in new packaging. Perhaps I am wrong?? Who knows?

Sarah Joyce

I'm intrigued by it as a replacement for my old UZ, but what's up with it not having a flash hotshoe? Now that they've added raw, if they could just throw in a hotshoe (and maybe bulb exposure mode with an external tripswitch) they'd just about have my ideal long zoom digicam.

RHyde-

With the very sophicated slave flashes that are available today, one hardly needs a hotshoe. Afterall, the best thing you can do is to get the flash away from the camera. The results are amazingly better.

Sarah Joyce

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1126730946.html

There is a preview of the camera posted there. Being a current owner of a well used C750uz I really find the SP500 a step back in the right dirrection IMHO for Olympus' UZ line of cameras. The single largest turn off for me with the 765/770 was the switch away from AA batteries. I also like that its a black bodied camera so the tcon17/wcon07 I purchased for my 750uz could actually match if I purchase one of these cameras.

Yea I would have liked to see some sort of image stabalization on the camera but have managed without it for 2years+ with the 750uz and 1year now with the E-1. The hotshoe would have been nice to see so maybe I could use the fl50 I have for the E-1 on it.... but then again if I was to shoot in low light that needed a huge flash id simply bring the E-1. Also from reading the preview for the camera I linked above the flash on this pre-production camera seems to be very powerful for a camera of this type.

It has its shortcomings thats for certain, its not going to change or raise the bar in the ultra zoom market with anything new (although 6mp is an interesting resolution). However I think it does offer an interesting combination of features and with an msrp of $379.99usd(according to the stats page from the above preview)its also going to sell for a heck of alot less than I paid ($7xx ish cdn if memory serves me)for my C750uz back in the day.


Since my folks still would love to buy my 750uz off me and it would be nice to have a secondary camera around I may pick one up as a replacement for the 750uz as the wife really likes using it because of its layout/size/zoom.

Let's see what the tiny 1/2.5" CCD does to the 6 MP crammed unto it.:G

shutterbuggy wrote:
Yea, thats definately the scary part for sure. Although 2 + years of advances in technology..... who knows. The one thing that caught my eye was no iso50 on the SP500 like what I have available to use on the 750uz.:?