On May 1, 2004, at 10:25 PM, Chris Barker wrote:
>
> Dear All
>
> The latest edition of Amateur Photographer has a long review of the
> C-8080, the 5th of the recently released 8mp models. Conclusions:
> noise is a problem at EI 400 (the highest setting); the camera is not
> comfortable in small hands; some of the controls are poorly laid out
> (e.g. buttons on left-hand side; the EVF is not as good as the other
> similar models; the reaction times and writing times are good; the
> ability to customise your own settings is good; the OM4-like spot
> metering is good.
>
> The reviewer is an OM user, Chris Gatcum, and he gave the camera 83%
> overall.
It is amazing how subjective reviews are. There are multiple reviews by
respected reviewers on the net that say just the opposite for just
about everything there except the noise statement which is true of all
the 8 MP digicams. And the only site that actually measures noise says
that the 8080 is the one of the least noisy of the 8MP group.
The consensus of opinions on several sites seems to be that it is very
comfortable in even small hands; the control layout is a little
different but with a little learning effort it seems to work better
than a conventional layout; turn on, autofocus speeds are superior;
write times are not so good(nothing new with Oly); EVF is as good or
better than the others except for the A2. And they seem to be unanimous
that it has the best lens.
The more I look at some reviews the more they seem like movie reviews,
just rationalizations for the reviewer's subjective first impression. I
think that maybe the way to deal with it is to depend on a more
objective review like dpreview.com for anything measurable that would
disqualify a model you are interested in and then to go handle the
cameras you are interested in yourself . For example almost all
reviewers were uniformly in favor of the Sony 717. When I looked at one
I thought it had a miserable shallow grip, inadequate controls, awkward
handling, lame menu system and the feel of a fairly cheap digicam body
grafted to a big lens. Do the subjective part yourself.
Winsor
Long Beach, California
USA
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