Someone, this someone - [link] - gave me a solution to the noisy imagess Olympus makes:!! It's a plugin which works with photoshop and a few other image-editing software packages, and you can buy it here - [link] - it is definitely worth the price if you are really into photography and you don't have a decent enough DSLR like a Canon or a Nikon.

Olympus introduced the SP 560 as an upgrade to the original SP 550 ultra-zoom camera sometime in 2007... here's a bit about the camera - well, I'm focusing on the cons more than the pros... most other reviews online would tell you all the good stuff.

Well, my first disappointment was that although the lens has a WIDE zoom range (27 - 490 mm if I'm not mistaken), it is not very sharp and images are 'soft'. This is bad for a macro photographer because the fine details of subjects aren't sharp.

The second disappointment is due to the small CCD size and high megapixel rate, probably. Olympus increased the resolution from 7.1 megapixels to 8.0 megapixels without increasing the size of the CCD.

At 50 ISO there is very little 'noise' but at 200 ISO there is enough noise to render a cropped macro photograph useless. At 400 ISO you can forget about posting your photographs on deviantart because they are incredibly grainy. Because of this, it is hard to take close-up photogaphs at dawn or dusk as the light isn't enough and at an aperture of 8.0 and 50 ISO, the shutter speed is reduced to 1/30 - 1/50 seconds which is too slow to capture good shots of bugs moving around.

In broad daylight, however, at 50 ISO and an aperture of 8.0 the shutter speeds can reach 1/640 seconds and the image quality is great.

The camera has an anti-blur option which comes in handy when using the super 18x zoom, but it adds noise to the image, making it more grainy. It's best to turn the anti-blur option off and use a tripod.

There is a Noise Reduction mode (if you can find it under the haphazard menu system) which is supposed to reduce noise but I haven't tried it out yet.

The saving grace of this camera for a photographer who is really into photography yet cannot yet afford a DSLR is the option to save images in the RAW format, but it takes about six or seven seconds to save a RAW image. The ultra-zoom lens has a really long range, which is an attraction at first, but unless you use a tripod it is impossible to get clear photographs of birds and such.

The Olympus SP 560 UZ is finally here!!! Woohoo!! Yay!!

I actually did a little dance around my little room when the lady from the shipping company told me it had arrived.

I woke up at 4 A.M. today and was willing the sun to rise earlier than it usually does, which, of course, it didn't.

I did get eight not-too-bad photographs which is pretty good for the first day!!

There is a lot of noise in the photographs, and I have a feeling this is because Olympus overstretched the limits of a small CCD sensor by upping the resolution from 7.1 to 8.0 megapixels. I will try reducing the resolution tomorrow but that does not do much good because when you buy a camera that says 8 Megapixels you expect 8 big fat megapixels!!

I was hoping that the camera we'd ordered would get here by the 19th of March, in time for the holidays... but now it looks like it's going to take much, much longer to get here.

The store told us that they wouldn't deliver to Johnny Air Cargo because they're a third party. Johnny Air Cargo is the company that was going to ship the thing frim the US to the Philippines because packages sent by FedEx and DHL get held up at customs and the officials open packages without the owner's consent and charge insane 'duties and taxes' way above what is prescribed.

They only let us know TEN days after we'd placed the order, which was very kind of them. Now we need to find a private address in the U.S. that they can ship the stuff to, and the person residing at that address would have to send it to Johnny Air Cargo in NY, and then Johnny Air Cargo will then have it sent to me.

I thought 15 days was a long enough wait... now it's going to be more like a month!! Ah well, that's the way the wind blows. I have the best luck.

Imma get a camera!! Imma get a camera!! Yay!!