Canon S45/S50 vs Olympus C-50

[BethanyW]

So... I'm looking for a little pocket-sized digital camera to use primarily for land stuff, but some casual underwater shooting as well. From what I've been reading here, I gather either the S45 (or S50) or the Olympus C-50 would be a reasonable choice, but I was wondering whether anyone has any thoughts as to which is better -- either for land or for underwater use. (I'd be using the manufacturer's housings underwater in either case.)

I'm sort of leaning towards the Canon because the Olympus media is so expensive. I tend to take a lot of pictures on vacation -- on my last trip I borrowed by boyfriend's 3.5 megapixel digital Elph and filled 600MB worth of cards with no difficulty at all -- and not on the Superfine compression level, either. So, being able to afford a lot of storage is importat to me. Also, I gather the S50 will take the little IBM drive, which sounds like a nice idea.

Any thoughts?

 

[Dee]

Olympus media? You do NOT have to use Olympus brand media cards, unless the C-50 is totally different from the rest of the models.

 

[ReyeR]

Dee, the C50 uses xD media only. You can use xD manufactured by Fuji in which case you can't use the panorama feature. I don't think it's much cheaper than the Oly brand either.

If I had to choose between an s50 and a c50 I would probably choose the s50 (even though I'm not a Canon fan). The work-arounds (because of the multi-controller) for accessing all the buttons with the s50 and housing is a PITA though. With the C50 you can access all the buttons/functions directly with the housing.

Going for the S50 are features like RAW, can turn pre-flash off and CF card. Other benefits include a time lapse feature and short movies with sound. I suspect the noise levels will be lower too.

 

[Dee]

I didn't realize that, thanks for the heads up, Reyer.

 

[BethanyW]

Yep. I couldn't remember the exact name of the media off the top of my head, but it's the xD media I meant. Expensive stuff no matter who makes them. :-(

Bethany