Yesterday, I took the above photograph with the camera I owned — an Olympus C-5060.
This morning, I took the above photograph with an Olympus C-7070, the camera for which I sold my C-5060. My parents have been without a reliable, semi-professional camera since their aging Canon thirty-five millimeter became too costly to repair without considering a digital replacement. A paralyzing breadth of available models and other financial priorities delayed their purchase — indefinitely, perhaps, had I not decided to browse the B&H website while chatting about photography to my friend, Ed, and found the C-7070 at an extraordinarily attractive price. Would my parents be willing to take a C-5060 at the going used-item rate? They would, and wrote a check for the agreed sum.
The C-7070 arrived yesterday. It is identical in form; the plating is dark grey and smooth to the C-5060's mottled black. The C-7070's mode dial is completely redesigned, thankfully, given the C-5060's notorious difficulties — an electronic failure that, earlier in the year, disappeared as suddenly as it appeared during the operation of my model, though I am prepared to help should my parents encounter a relapse. Each camera uses an electronic menu very similar to the other's; the C-7070's graphic user interface slightly more solid, if more intrusive.
Performance? Yesterday's horizon did not, I will admit, offer the best light, try as I did to meter from the hills and not the sky. But the C-7070 metered both ground and clouds similarly, its response to the yet-disparate amounts of light much more subtle. And with 30 percent more pixels, the C-7070's exposure — even when reduced to a size appropriate for posting — appears to be slightly finer than that of the C-5060.
I have the same camera with a few improvements, and two of my closest associates are now free to take their own snapshots. That's good fortune.