Always format a card in the camera before starting to use it.

If they are black and white and have been archivally processed, definitely.

If they are colour negatives the dyes fade at different rates and after 25 years the colours may be a nightmare.

If you have Kodachrome slides that have been kept cool and in the dark, then also definitely.

If you have E-4 or E-6 process slides, then many will be very poor indeed.

Nothing lasts forever.

Welcome, I've moved your question to a section where it will gain more attention.

I would make sure the dioptre adjustment is correct in the viewfinder. Point the camera at a blank surface, wall or sky perhaps, and adjust the slider until the etched lines in the viewfinder are sharpest. You are now focused on the screen itself and the view through the finder should be fine.

Otherwise, I too am very shortsighted and use glasses with my cameras and I don't have any particular problem. Press the viewfinder tight against the glasses so as much as possible of the screen can be seen at one time.

OK guys, remember please that it's a Classified Ad section, not a general chat one. Contributions should be concerned with the buying and selling process only.

To be fair, only you can decide. But you might be able to recoup some of the cost by selling and redundant lenses on eBay...maybe the Tamron and the 18-55mm?

Welocome Sean. You need a RAW converter to open the RAW files. There is one provided on disc withy the camera, but you will need to load the program on your computer.

The alternative is you shoot best quality JPEG. It will be fine and the quality will still be excellent.

They will go that way whilst it suits them. Just my opinion, but I find Olympus unsupportive of any idea of the backwards compatibility that we are so used to here.

Resizing is done all the time in Photoshop and the program will interpolate as required. Within reason, any theoretical loss in quality from resizing doesn't show in the final result.

Olympus is a special case and I would avoid them for the following reason. Consider the OM users of the 1970s and 1980s - abandoned. Now the 4/3 DSLR users are about to be abandoned as the E-5 has been declared the last of its line.

The cameras you mention are oddments in the market place, dead-ends if you like, and I can see in a few years, a very few years, if one fails there will be no parts to fix it.

I would always suggest going for something mainstream, even though there are some interesting oddball offerings to tempt us!