Olympus C770 or the Fuji S5500

I have posted this question on a few web forums as well as here, so
apologies if you have seen it more than once, I am trying to get as many
varied user opinions as possible.

Both cameras have similar specifications - 10x optical zoom, 4megapixel,
movie mode, etc.

The main obvious difference is the design. Olympus is silver compact camera
design and the Fuji is black SLR design (though obviously not an SLR).

I have read the reviews and both seem very similar in functionality so what
I am looking for is the negative points of each camera.

So... what are the negative points of these cameras?

Many thanks.

Becky

 

1. The Fuji S5500 uses an EVF that could use more amplification
when it's dark. With its focusing lamp it manages OK, but if it's
really dark you have to guess where to point the camera.

2. With a shutter speed limited to no longer than 8 seconds it's not
an ideal camera for taking long night exposures.

3. It can also focus manually, but it's far less convenient than the
way any of my old SLRs focused, so I don't do this very often.

4. If you asked a month or two ago I might have added that the xD
cards it uses tend to be more expensive and are too limited in size.
This may still be true in some local stores if you don't shop
carefully, but they're now close to par with CF cards. I just got a
couple of 1GB cards (Olympus xD and Sandisk Ultra II CF) for the
same price, $89 each (at B&H).

5. It doesn't have live histograms. You can only see histograms
after the pictures have been taken.

Though you didn't ask for pluses, here are some:

I've be quite pleased with the quality of the pictures that the
S5500 takes, and it has extremely long battery life, even using
alkaline AAs. If you use the flash a lot, NiMH batteries are
preferable, giving you about 400 shots vs. 200 for alkalines. If
you disable the flash, such as when taking outdoor shots, you might
easily get from 800 to 1000 shots per set of alkaline batteries. If
you use rechargeable NiMH batteries and don't have a charger that
has the ability to discharge the batteries, the S5500 can do this
for you.

The flash itself pops up sufficiently high that redeye is
extremely rare. I can only recall seeing a small amount of it in
one shot taken thus far.

Many cameras allow you to zoom images on the LCD display, but the
S5500 allows you to zoom far in, up to 14x which really lets you see
the kind of fine detail that would otherwise require viewing on a
computer.

It may have an SLR's shape, but it's very small and lightweight,
so other than being too large to slip into a shirt pocket, you can
carry it everywhere all day long and it's not a burden.

 

HI Asaar, thanks for the in depth reply. The negatives you raised I don't
think would be an issue for me. Histograms I do not even know what they are
and the shutter speed is not a problem as I have never taken long exposed
shots.
Thankyou very much for posting some more positives. It is good to see that
it has a very long battery life, that is a major plus for me as I often take
100 or more shots in a day.
Do you know the differences between the s5000 and the s5500 ? I have the
chance of getting a cheaper s5000 on Amazon marketplace but don't want to go
with it if the previous version has flaws.

 

As an owner of the S5000 I can tell you it has no usable manual focus, and
more fringing than the s5500.

Also the S5000 is an interpolated camera that produces 6mp pictures from a 3
mp sensor.

If you shoot RAW with it this can be avoided with PhotoSho CS using the raw
converter.

Overall I would say the S5500 is a better camera

 

I knew a few differences last year but no longer recall what the
were. I probably read about them from reading the dpreview's Fuji
forum. I think that the S5000 had one or two minor advantages, one
possibly being the "Top" consecutive shot mode taking more frames,
so the S5500's Top 3 mode might be Top 4 or Top 5 with the S5000.
But it still can take up to 40 consecutive shots, although at a
slightly slower rate. One S5000 owner claimed to get poor battery
life using alkalines, but that may be due to a bad sample as some
reviews show no battery problems. I'd imagine that the S5500 would
do better but I haven't seen the S5000's manual. I found that the
battery life spec's reported in the manual are accurate. You can
probably download manuals for both cameras from Fuji's website, and
I'd look in a few areas, such as video capability (S5500 can take
high-res 30fps video (with audio) limited only by the size of the xD
card) and can also add voice annotations to still pictures.

I saw the S5000 in a display case recently and was a bit surprised
as from small pictures I thought it was virtually indistinguishable
from the S5500, but close up it was definitely less photogenic than
the S5500. One difference is that the S5000's sensor has fewer
pixels than the S5500. If you don't make very large prints this
probably won't be a big drawback. Although I don't recall other
superior features of the S5500 there were a good number of them, and
the majority of the forum participants thought so too, although to
be honest, the S5000 had a number of very loyal fans. The old
messages are probably still online, with the ones I read probably
dating back to late last year.

 

Thanks, much appreciated. Do you have any opinions on the Olympus 770? I
keep swinging back and forth between models and its doing my head in

 

Once again, thanks for the help.
Its annoying for me having two or three cameras so close I really cannot
make up my mind.

 

You're welcome. Both the Fuji and the Olympus are nice cameras.
The smaller Olympus is more pocketable, but in a camera that size
I'd want either a shorter zoom (I think these small cameras are more
difficult to hold steadily) or maybe even only a moderately long
zoom like the 6x on a couple of the Panasonic Lumix compact cameras,
which have image stabilization (but at the expense of no
viewfinder). I also don't care much for the proprietary lithium
batteries, as they might have to be replaced every 2 or 3 years, and
as I like to have a spare battery on hand, that would mean a
recurring expense of 2 new moderately expensive batteries. Hang
onto the camera long enough and its value will be less than the new
batteries. Of course for some people lithium batteries are
preferable, especially for sub-compact cameras. But they often
sacrifice features such as focusing lamps, etc.

Here's a radical idea - get both, use them until you decide which
one you prefer and then sell the other on eBay. You wouldn't get
back enough to cover the entire cost of the second camera, but it
might be well worth the additional expense. Sort of like renting
two cameras with an option to buy. Or you may like them both so
much you won't want to part with either.

 

I also have the C-770 ans I like it better than the S5000.

The Olympus has an odd menu system that takes getting used to, but other than
that I cant find fault with it.

 

LOL I am not that rich to get both
I have weighed up the pros and cons and have decided to go with the Fuji
s5500. Local Jessops have said they can price match the internet stores so
I can probably get it today. I wil be back later with opinions on it.

 

I quite like the Olympus menus, I currently have a 720. But have decided to
go with Fujifilm s5500. I shall let you know how I get on

 

They are almost exactly, but not quite precisely, unlike any other menu
system I have used.

Its not bad, just different.

 

Best of luck with it. The only problem I had with the camera was
due to a little impatience. I wanted to use the it before becoming
really familiar with the use of all of the buttons and modes.
Taking a couple of hours worth of indoor test shots with the manual
at hand helped a lot. Someday I imagine cameras will have a high
enough resolution EVF or LCD display that they could easily display
a readable full manual contained internally on ROM.