for the el cheapos

I was looking to spend a couple hundred dollars on a camera but not expecting to get much for the money I had. This little camera far exceeded my expectations. Get great buy, especially for the price. Easy to use. Very nice quality of pictures.

After much deliberation I purchaced this camera to take pictures of my new son; knowing Olympus's great quality and userfriendly apperatus I did not think I would be dissapointed, I was not.<br /> <br /> The photos from this camera, particularily in superfine mode are outstandingly crisp and clear, after ordering prints online (including 8x10s) I realized what a signifigant purchase this was there was virtually no difference between the prints and photographic prints.<br /> <br /> Two hints for anyone wanting to buy this camera however<br /> a) buy the 256mb card it is worth it for the 115 SHQ shots you'll get<br /> <br /> b) it is absolutely nessessary to buy a battery charger with four Ni-MH batteries. These will last you one whole day. about 70-80 shots.

I received this camera as a gift and subsequently took it on a long trip to Russia (instead of my bulky SLR film camera). This camera was outstanding: easy to use, produces good quality pictures, lightweight. It makes toting "regular" camera gear around too cumbersome to contemplate: this camera slips into a pants pocket easily enough. As my first digital camera, it's everything I had hoped it would be and more.

The software (Olympus's Camedia) is pretty good and relatively easy to use, although managing your pictures can be more work than it needs to be. Maybe I'll upgrade that to the Pro version. Nonetheless, I was downloading pictures quickly and everything worked cleanly. The main reason to use the software (rotating pictures) is convenient.

The camera itself is lightweight and pretty durable (my son dropped it a few times and it survived just fine). The 16 MB card that comes with it is too small for realistic use, but a 128 MB card is easy to purchase: budget for it, as you'll want the storage. There are only a few minor annoyances that you'll want to compare to other cameras before choosing this one (I don't think anyone else does it any better).

First, this camera (like many digital cameras) devours batteries. The "low battery" warning comes on very quickly--way too quickly, since battery life far exceeds the warning. However: as the battery runs down, the camera itself processes more and more slowly. So I've found that you'll often miss shots because you need to know about a second in advance to push the button. The lag between "go" and the camera firing is annoying.

Second, the zoom control is a bit difficult to use. It's located on top of the camera and twists, an action that I find difficult to perform while aiming the camera. I've taken to holding the camera at about chest level to shoot pictures so that I have better control.

Overall, the picture quality settings are easy to manage and the pictures themselves are bright, clear, and sharp. The autofocus is almost always perfect and you'll rarely dig into the menus to adjust the camera performance. The panorama capability doesn't seem to work, but it's an extraneous feature.

In any case, this is a great little camera. It does everything a digital camera should, is well made, and makes me a happy camper.