>Hi Sebastien
>
>>I am new to photography
Me too except I'm one year old now :-)
Welcome, I hope you find this list as enjoyable and useful as I have.
SNIP
>> I tought the readers of this list might be interested
>>to know why someone starting from scratch would go for Olympus
>>rather than Nikon/Canon/Pentax.
Yes I am interested and find your reasons to be sound. I am using your
post as an oppurtunity to harp on about how I was fortunate enough to
stumble across the Olympus SLR range.
My first camera 12 months ago was Pentax's heavily advertised and
cheapest Auto SLR the MZ/ZX-50 and it was only a few months later that I
got sidetracked (backtracked?) in a major way into the OM system. If
it weren't for the combination of 1) a particular lady and her Pentax
Spotmatic, 2) the MZ-50 being incompatible with older Pentax glass, 3)
an article in Buying Camera's magazine, I would have remained Pentaxed
through and through and would have totally missed out on the Joys of OM
ownership.
It all started in our local shopping mall (shopping centre) where my
daughter had been invited to a party. During the group photo session,
the lady with the Pentax Spotmatic made my jaw drop by taking all her
shots without flash! When I saw that she had a 50 1.something lens
mounted, I was in love (with the lens that is) and I vowed to purchase
the same for my MZ-50 thinking it would revolutionise my available light
photo's.
Well, my jaw dropped for the second time that day when I was told the
MZ-50 lens mount is not compatible with the older manual focus Pentax
lenses and that I would have to spend hundreds more to buy the current
autofocus 50mm lens. So I resigned myself to saving up for said lens,
and putting up with the little pop up flash while doing so. You see I
couldn't afford the super duper auto everything Pentax flash gun either.
In the meantime, I spent lots of time on the Internet at photography
related sites soaking up as much info as I could. In retrospect,
however I suggest to any beginner to also consider an introductory
photography course and making use of your local library for a more
structured/methodical way of learning. Any way, I was also browsing
the odd photo magazine in my quest for knowledge and useful information
(a fruitless endeavour wrt to some mags) and came across the article in
Buying Camera's mag of the UK, which changed my life and my bank balance
:-)
The article covered the results of a survey completed by a number of "UK
Photo Professionals" last year, who were asked to nominate their all
time favourite camera from any era or camera format. The winner of that
survey was none other than the OM1/n with a full page write up
describing why it was the number one choice.
>From that day onwards, my destiny was sealed, I had seeeen the light, my
burning ambition was to own an OM1/n and every other OM System product
that the Maker - Olympus Optical Corp. had deemed to place on the face
of the earth.............................................ahem apologies
for the unbridled enthusiam attack. Actually I meant to say that it was
a suprise to me that what I had previously regarded as "That pesky
little point and shot manufacturer", had sometime ago produced a range
of manual SLR's with a suitably fast 50mm as a standard lens. So I
immediately put my Pentax AF aspirations on hold and bought an OM1n with
50mm 1.8 to try out, and I have been going backwards ever since :-) I
now have a reasonable collection of lenses and accessories and so far
have found use for all of them.
I still pull out that Buying Cameras article every now and then and read
it for a buzz, I'd be happy to type out the contents of the article if
anyone is interested. So far, I am satisfied with my decision to go
with OM, and at present I think it is a more cost effective (used
market) way of building a collection of specialist lens, flash and
camera accessories than doing likewise with a modern autofocus SLR.
>SNIP
>>As far as lenses go, the 35-70mm/f3.5-4.8 (sold with the OM2000) seems
>>to work very well.
I read that many modern day zooms offer good optical performance,
certainly the modestly priced Sigma zoom on my Pentax does the job for
me. I vowed to stick to primes when I started in OM, but after
reading the opinions of many experienced guys on this list re:
particular Zuiko and older third party zooms, I changed my mind and
bought one recently - a photography instructor singled out a photo she
was impressed by that I shot with this zoom (Vivitar S1 35-58 f2.8. )
so it can't be half bad eh? This was also the first lens I have
purchased that I haven't taken test shots with myself so it is relief to
me that it turned out ok.
>
>>This is the only uncertain factor here. I know I will need a portrait
>>lense and a wide angle lense sometime in the future. It is my
>>impression that Zuiko offers same or better quality/price than
>>the best other brands. Am I right? Any suggestion of lenses to get
>>or to avoid? and how about the Tamron Adaptall lenses, are do they
>>compare?
I use the Zuiko 100 f2.8 for portraits and subjectivly speaking I'm
extremely pleased with it. Don't forget to check out the Olympus
mailing list digests at http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html
if you have the time.
Regards
S.C.
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