Does anyone here have this camera? I have been looking at cameras for months and I have narrowed it down to this one or the Olympus 580. Both are highly recommended almost everywhere with an edge to the Sony. Both are on Steve's camera site (Great site by the way!) and are both on his newly created recommended page. Just curious if anyone here has one of these. Any and all feedback on how well they work etc is much appriciated!

Thanks

www.steves-digicams.com

John
Just my opinion.......go with the sony.

Bray, I was hoping you would see this post. I know your a camera guy. I will go with the Sony if you think that is the way to go. Good choice on the camera? All I need is something for shooting the family and general stuff like that.

John
Yea the sony is a nice camera, it should do a great job for family pics and even more. A fellow photographer friend of mine took one to Peru and shot those famous ruins there (I cant remember the name of them, but theyre the ones you always see when looking at pics of Peru) anyway...... he did a series of shots of this place panning across them as he shot. We then took these files and stitched them into a continuous seemless panoramic, final size being 14x40 and it turned out amazing. Of course this takes a bunch of photoshop skills, but it helps when your working with great files to begin with.
With a 5 megapixel camera you can get a really nice 8x10 and in some cases 11x14 and even bigger (depending on subject matter).
As far as sony vs olympus, in my opinion the sony will be a more durable camera.

Machu Picchu, Brady. A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live there.

Yea thats what he says. He is actually there right now. He has met a girl
(20 years his junior) that keeps him going back. He told me thay were engaged, all I could say is ummmmmm good for you I think (not).

My personal opinion has always go with either Canon, Nikon or Olympus just because they make the best optics in the photography field. My past experience on Sony was not too pleasant.
This is my suggestion based on the price you were looking.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/s45.html

Thanks Saturn. What happened with you and Sony?

Bought the P32 I got for the fiancee had soft pictures..almost out of focus. A lot of pictures had a red push. My buddies Cybershot...dont remember model always had a really bad red push.
To this day I find Canon and or Nikon to have the best in overall pictures and any of their models have really cool manual settings that would satisfy any expert.

Almost all digital cameras have a white balance that needs to be set every so often. Also most Sony cameras have Carl Zeiss optics which are every bit as good as Cannon or Nikon,
I love Cannon and Nikon (I shoot Nikon), but Olympus has never been a brand that I have confidence in.

In reply to:

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Almost all digital cameras have a white balance that needs to be set every so often. Also most Sony cameras have Carl Zeiss optics which are every bit as good as Cannon or Nikon,
I love Cannon and Nikon (I shoot Nikon), but Olympus has never been a brand that I have confidence in.

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Yes all the Sony's with the Carl Zeiss optics are excellent. But I believe the model in question does not.
I had the Olympus 5050Z and 4000 and both were spectacular ... until I crashed my mtn bike and my snowboard and lost both.
Nikon is great. It almost always gives the best picture. I also do like Nikon because it does have a little blueish push which gives it a cool color...(you know what I mean as cool right)