Olympus SP-510 UZ, a New Toy!

Due to the limited quality of indoor photographs and a deal too good to pass up at London Drugs, I decided it was time to retire my aging Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P32.

At $289 for the Olympus SP-510 UZ including a 1 GB xD memory card the combo was approximately $100 below the typical retail price…

The London Drugs flyer from last weekend is what originally caught my interest to the camera. I made the trip to the South Common location immediately after work. Unfortunately this location didn’t have any stock (excluding the slightly dinged up display model). Slightly frustrated at the stereotypical scenario of an electronics retailer not having any inventory during an advertised sale, Jessie and I began shop hopping. After failing miserably to find anything resembling a comparable bargain we ran off to Denny’s to pout about it over dinner.

After we arrived back home, having always been the spontaneous “buy it right now, or not at all” type I decided I didn’t feel like waiting for the London Drugs branch in question to restock their inventory. I decided I’d be persistent and call every branch in the city. Luck having been on my side, the first branch had a few left.

I arrived at the store just in time to witness with sadistic pleasure as the customer ahead me in line was told that the camera was sold out, with the exception of the floor model. I tried not to smile as I purchased my on hold unit from the rep next to his, but I don’t think I succeeded.

Having played with the camera yesterday evening, my first impressions are good for it’s price range. There are certainly fancier cameras on the market, but the price to performance ratio seems quite impressive. The camera seems to function well as a spontaneous point and shooter, but still provides enough features to hang myself with. It has support for manual adjusting enough of the parameters to allow me to get my feet wet with some basic photography skills. Specifically, it allows me to tweak the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO value. In the small amount of time I’ve played with it, this seems to allow for some interesting results. In addition, the camera supports RAW image functionality.

It will take some practice to achieve any interesting shots with my non-existent photography experience, but who doesn’t need another hobby to dabble with?

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