A Big Dilemma

SamirD

After taking hundreds of thousands of pictures, my faithful Olympus e-20n has a stuck shutter. :cry The camera itself seems like it's fine since it actually tries to meter the light and set exposure when you depress the shutter.

So here's the dilemma. While the e-20n is almost a decade old, the lens is still very good and has regularly produced images like this for me:

And I have almost all the accessories/lenses/etc for this camera, so there's already an investment in this platform. So what do to? :dunno

• I could replace the camera, and it seems like that will cost around $250+ to do so.
• I could repair the camera, and it seems like that will cost around the same.
• Or I could try to move to another camera that can replace what the Olympus was in my arsenal.

And it's that third choice that I really wonder about.

I primarily use the e-20 for panning shots and shots that require spot metering since Olympus messed up the exposure system when I sent it in for repair one time. It's not good for any ISO above 200, so it's an ambient daylight camera. Although with the lens that's on it, it's produces quite sharp images. I used it A LOT with ambient light stills when the metering work correctly.

A replacement camera would need the following capabilities--continuous shooting of 3-4 frames/sec without blanking out the lcd or having an optical viewfinder, zoom of 7x or more optical with aperture of 4.0 or lower at the tele end, tack sharp lens, P,M,S,A modes and other professional level controls. And it has to be in the same cost range and the replacement cost of the e-20n.

I'm just starting to see what's out there in the used market, and from my research so far, most dslr bodies (even older ones) are out of the budgetary requirements once you add on the lens requirement. And even then, most consumer lenses isn't as sharp as the e-20.

I'm open to any suggestions/ideas/feedback. :thumb

ziggy53

Not much out there for $250. I suggest replacing the camera with another used camera of the same model in the hopes that if the second fails maybe it could be a different type of failure and you could scavenge parts from your older camera.

Obviously you could do much, much better than the E-20 "if" you wanted to invest considerably more, but you know the E-20 inside and out right now and you can continue to leverage that knowledge a bit longer by buying another copy. (That also leaves you the option of repairing the original camera if you wish, so you could have a backup camera.)

SamirD

Thank you for the reply ziggy. What do you think the price point would be to find a camera that does what the e-20 does? $350? $500? If it's something that's new, a warranty and a camera with <100k shutter actuations will last longer than almost any e-20 I find. The age of the electronics in any e-20 are going to start being a big factor in longevity and image quality.

ziggy53

SamirD wrote: »

Thank you for the reply ziggy. What do you think the price point would be to find a camera that does what the e-20 does? $350? $500? If it's something that's new, a warranty and a camera with <100k shutter actuations will last longer than almost any e-20 I find. The age of the electronics in any e-20 are going to start being a big factor in longevity and image quality.

It would be best to think in the low to middle thousands for a camera and lens combination that can work much faster, with greater resolution and accuracy, and with the ability to work in lower light levels. Depending on the distance involved to the subject and the desired frame rate it could get very costly indeed.

A more direct replacement is available in a similar form factor to the E-20 in the form of a "crossover" digicam like a Fujifilm FinePix HS10. (Less than $500USD) I suspect you would like and appreciate things like:

24 - 720mm equivalent 30x optical zoom lens
IS (sensor shift)
Up to 7 frames continuous shooting at 3 ,5, 7 and 10 frames/sec.
Excellent ISO 400 (for a digicam and compared to an Oly E-20) with very nice ISO 800 and usable ISO 1600 for simple subjects.

AF is still pretty slow so you would have to continue using the same techniques I suspect you use with the E-20. Battery life may be an issue unless you pay special attention to the type of batteries used. The HS10 has a digital/electronic viewfinder so you would need to anticipate the action or look over the viewfinder to shoot. Flushing the shot buffer to the memory card is another area that's pretty poor, so it's far from perfect.

Still, the FinePix HS10, or something similar, might be enough of an improvement to make some sense for your application.

SamirD

I was afraid you were going to mention the dslr route. That gets very expensive very quickly.

But the Fuji sounds like it might be a logical upgrade to the e-20. Most of my other cameras also top out at a usable iso 200, so 400 and 800 would be a welcome addition. The specs look pretty good. Do you have any links to reviews? I checked dpreview and they didn't have anything.

ziggy53

The HS10 is still pretty new (just announced Feb 2010, started shipping in April). Reviews are a little hard to come by.

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Fuji-FinePix-HS10-Digital-Camera-First-Impressions-Review-21562.htm

http://www.photoreview.com.au/Fujifilm/reviews/advanced/fujifilm-finepix-hs10.aspx

SamirD

Thank you Ziggy! Those are great reviews.

I did some searches and found some mixed reviews from people that have dslrs and are using this as a backup. For now, I think I'm going to see if I can acquire another e-20 or repair mine as it will be the most economical path. Thank you for the feedback.