Saying Goodbye to an Old Flame
May 16th, 2008 by Don Ray
It was just about a year ago that I bought an Olympus 550 UZ camera. In only one year’s time Olympus has released two models to replace the 550. Technology, whether it is in computers or cameras, doesn’t have that long of a life cycle anymore.
While, in general, I have loved the Olympus 550, when Casio announced the EXILIM Pro EX-F1, I got the bug. Then as the Casio reviews started coming in, I saw that it had too many flaws in the initial release and that it would take a couple of generations, before it might be worth the money. Plus, it appears to be as large as a SLR.
As I was reading the Casio reviews, I saw Olympus release the new 570. It had changed several items that I interested me. While I thought the 560 changes were minimal. the 570 had made major improvement. I was hooked.
In general, all functions of the camera have been refined. It feels solid. The zoom ring was one thing I wanted. The manual focus has improved. It now accepts an external flash. It has face detection. It went from 7.1 to 10 mega pixels. The lens cover snaps in place. Many more items can be seen on the Olympus site. The one thing that Olympus didn’t change is that it still used xD memory. If Olympus would move to the the SD memory, I think they would increase their sales.
While it is smaller than a SLR, it gives me most of the capability of a SLR without having to change or carry extra lenses. It is larger than most point and shoot, but still small enough to be carried around, which I do all the time.
I am going to send my old flame, the 550 UZ, to my son. I know that he needs a good camera to send me photos of my McKinney grandkids. 
Think he will get the hint?
¡ Hola Don Ray et al !
Now T H A T sounds like a great camera. Its f2.8 to f4.5 20X lens could more than get the job done in most any situation.
Ran across some discounted pricing on the Net for the Olympus - SP-570 UZ –
http://tinyurl.com/6nwbo8
Butterfly Photo – 409.90
http://tinyurl.com/5b7cne
Abe’s of Maine –416.95
http://tinyurl.com/5fhkon
Tri-State 419.99
Happy hunting.
Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®
I got mine at Amazon because it was easier and the delivery was dependable. It was $421. I can already tell that the changes to the previous model are well thought out. I am enjoying it.