Olympus is selling its camera business to a Japan investment company. The Olympus M.Zuiko 14-42mm lens may be a reason why. The lens came with a second-hand Olympus E-PL1 camera, as its standard kit lens. It’s a very sharp, fast-focusing lens. Until you zoom out to 25mm. Then, the lens refuses to focus. At all. It took less than 60 seconds to find multiple threads on DPReview.com that confirmed how widespread this issue has become. Judging from a few posts describing owners’ conversations with Olympus technical support, the company knows about the problem. And hasn’t acknowledgeD the lens’ circuitry issue. The troubled lens is easy to replace. But that’s not the point. I treasured several Olympus film cameras, and owned a Tough series compact digital. But a company needs to stand behind its products. Or lose its customers. Sigma — a lens manufacturer of fine pedigree — updated the firmware in one of my lenses when it no longer functioned with a new camera body. At no charge. Which len
If you shoot film and have it processed at a drugstore, watch out. Walgreens and CVS are trying to steal your silver. By Eastwind41 (Own work) [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons That's the only possible explanation as to why they no longer return your negatives when you develop color negative film. Instead of giving you prints with negatives in your photofinishing envelope, they give you prints and image files on a CD. You don't get your negatives back. By SkywalkerPL (Own work) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Why? The film contains tiny particles of silver, which can be extracted and recycled, usually benefitting the photo lab. Companies used to offer kits that allowed labs to recover the silver, and you'd get your negatives back. But that technology likely isn't widely offered, since film processing declined. This page of Kodak's website talks about the process. The labs want to keep the silver. So you don't get your negatives
Read this Craigslist ad, and you'll discover how to review a camera. But you won't do much to sell it. Eventually, you figure out that the seller/reviewer has a Nikon D90 digital SLR . A lovely camera. He or she might have the 18-105 VR kit lens to sell, too. Or another lens purchased afterward. It's hard to tell. But there's no asking price. And I wouldn't begin to guess what's included with the camera. I would guess that he's suffering a pretty severe case of buyer's remorse. We've all been there, pal. I don't miss pricey newspaper classified ads. But they had one saving grace: brevity. If you want to sell something, be accurate, and be brief. If you want to be David Pogue -- who writes funny, detailed reviews for the New York Times -- that's fine. But Craigslist isn't the right venue.
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