At 09:32 PM 6/12/2002 -0500, Curtis Hedman wrote:
>Anyone have any opinions about the APS Olympus Centurion? I've recently gotten
>it into my head that I'd like one of the 'little brothers' of my IS-3... bid
>on a couple on e*ay with no success. I want the original Black Centurion, not
>the newer silver Centurion S - am I making a mistake there? Or should I forget
>APS entirely and put the $ toward another OM-mount lens, or a T-32, or
>something else along that line?
Curtis:
I own the silver Centurion-S, and for a walk-around camera it's a great little
beast.
The silver colour, in my mind, is preferable to the black, because it helps to
keep the innards of the critter from becoming too hot. The -S model has
mid-roll change capability (always a part of the APS specs, but many APS
cameras -- particularly the first ones to hit the market! -- don't support this
feature). Mid-roll change has saved my bacon more than once when going from
outside in bright sunlight to indoors, and vice versa. And of course, when you
go back outside, you can change films again! Saves money, since APS film tends
to be somewhat more expensive than its 35mm counterpart. I'd recommend the -S
version just for this reason alone.
It has most of the usual bells 'n whistles, its auto-focus is fast (and you can
use the focus lock to focus on something not in the centre of attention, then
move back to the centre of attention and take the shot), but it's *not* a
completely controllable camera. I do have a few pictures which did not work
out like I expected, mostly because of a lack of certain types of manual
override. Yet for most people's requirements, it's far more than they need.
One caveat: the body is made from a plastic, which isn't all that tough. I
dropped it by accident once from waist level onto smooth pavement, and it
landed on the pop-up flash module on the top and basically destroyed it. Cost
me $175.00 Canadian to get that repaired (they replaced the entire assembly).
Interestingly, I still used it after the dropping incident but before getting
it repaired, and it worked fine (with the exception of the flash, of course).
But the repair facility (Olympus America) checked out the entire mechanism
anyway, just to be on the safe side -- probably added $75.00 Canadian to the
repair cost.
FWIW.
Garth
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