|
|
My 'Free' Olympus Digital CameraOct 22 '00 Write an essay on this topic.Over a year ago, one of the primary factors in purchasing my computer was the offer of a ‘Free’ high-end Olympus Camedia C-900 (worth £350 [$500]). Knowing that I was going to purchase a digital camera in any case, and that Olympus was a world renowned camera maker, I was more than pleased to have this item in my possession. The relative cost might not have been ‘Free’, but I still felt it was a good deal. One and a half years on, I still own the camera, regularly use it, and have been extremely pleased with its all round performance. Looking Good Olympus cameras have a clean and well-considered design. The C-900 is no exception and it screams of class. Finished in silver with the odd touch of ‘gold’ it has a solid feel to it. As cameras become more complicated, companies seem to add even more options. I was surprised with the amount of buttons and knobs on the C-900 and for people with little knowledge of cameras, it may appear quite daunting. The front of the C-900 has 3 distinct areas: The 3X zoom lens automatically propels outwards by 1-inch after moving the Lens Barrier. Close to the lens is a red light, which comes in handy for taking delayed photos. Situated above the lens is a powerful flash and on the right edge is an area where you insert the SmartMedia Card that stores your photos. My camera came with a 2Mb module, but this doesn’t hold many photos (9 High Quality images) so I purchased a 16Mb module. The back of the camera contains a 1.5 inch LCD screen and 9 operational buttons. Initial scepticism as to the need for these buttons was dispelled as I became more confident with the features, and most of them do make operating the screen menus easier. The screen is a fantastic feature of Digital Cameras. It allows you to roughly compose shots, and for people who find looking through the tiny viewfinder a strain, acts as an added bonus. You can also quickly glide through the photos you take to determine whether any of them weren’t properly composed or appeared blurry. If you don’t find them to your liking you can delete the offending images and thus retake your shots. This option has been used on many occasions. Last summer I was attending a model aircraft show where I was taking a lot of photos of fast flying models. A lot of my shots were missing the planes, whereas many others were turning out blurry. I was able to delete those shots, change the exposure settings and zoom, retake them and thus fill my camera with lots of high quality images. A truly excellent feature. The camera provides 3 main quality settings. * Standard Quality compressed images at a 640*480 resolution, with noticeable artefacts. They don't look that good on this setting. * High Quality offers a resolution of 1280*960. The artefacting can be limited if you reduce the size of the image on your computer. * Super High Quality offers minimal compression producing excellent images. There is one further option – No Compression – but you can only get 4 shots on the 16 Mb memory card. I stick to SHQ where I can fit 36 pictures onto the 16Mb card. I use HQ on trips allowing me store 70+ images. Manual When I first opened the package I thought it would be a relatively simple case of reading a few pages from the manual, fiddling about a bit with the camera and I’d be taking pictures within 20 minutes. However, this wasn’t the case, and I had to sit down with camera and manual for a good few hours before getting to grips with the vast array of options at my disposal. In fact, at first I thought there were too many options. Only later on, as I became more confident, did I begin to appreciate the more advanced features. The manual itself is one of the most comprehensive and well-constructed books I’ve read. It contains close to 200 pages, and covers every aspect you could think of. Olympus clearly put a great deal of effort into providing the right level of detail, and with each feature they include very handy Notes, Diagrams and Warnings to help clearly explain the camera functions. With high-end digital cameras I recommend taking the time to do as I did. It will pay off, and the more you learn, the more confident you will become and your knowledge should start to show in the quality and range of pictures you take. It certainly did with me – I started with blurry badly lit and horridly composed photos, but over time I’ve come to appreciate the advice that Olympus’ manual provides. Software The software Olympus provide is called Camedia Master and while it’s generally functional, I’ve found a few bugs which have annoyed me. The major problem is that on the odd occasion it fails to connect to the camera. This means having to either fiddle about with the speed of download or reboot the computer altogether. The worst aspect is that it seems to be intermittent and there is no real identifiable cause for the problem. It might in fact have something to do with the communication port on my computer, but I’ve accepted the odd software glitch in what is otherwise a decent package with features like Slideshow and Panorama effects. In addition to Camedia, Olympus bundles the PhotoAlbum program, an excellent way to organise photos into little albums for subsequent storage. When I take photos, I also make backups on zip disks and CD-R’s since I never feel happy having hundreds of photos stored only on my hard drive. The Olympus in Use The camera takes 4 AA batteries, and I’ve been using rechargeables that last for a couple of hours. Standard Duracell’s should last 5+ hours. Since the camera is battery hungry, I try to limit my usage of the LCD Screen, and on holidays/trips I always pack a few spare sets of batteries. I’ve used the Camera in many situations, and different conditions. Recently I’ve been working on a personal website with my brother, which has involved taking hundreds of detailed shots of electronic components. Without a digital camera the costs and time needed for this task would have been very high. In total, I estimate that during the last 1.5 years, the Olympus has taken about 2000 photos, and is a very reliable device. I haven’t dropped the camera yet, and always use the provided wrist grip. One aspect which I don’t particularly like is the Lens Barrier – when closing, it sometimes hits against the black lens casing, although this is just a minor complaint. Verdict The Olympus Camedia C-900 is a high quality camera. The photos come out very well, is very reliable, built to last and has enough options to please most people. Other benefits include the convenience of being able to take pictures and view/print them within minutes, delete and retake shots, and in terms of cost, well there is no more film and processing costs and you can store hundreds of photos on a single CD-R! There are some negative aspects however: it appears the software has a few glitches, the Lens Barrier isn’t that great, the camera certainly eats through the batteries and the download speed could be faster. If I was to purchase a new Digital Camera tomorrow, Olympus would be the first brand I would consider. If you can afford it, I highly recommend this product as a second more advanced Digital Camera; one that should last you a good few years.  |
| Read all comments (4)|Write your own comment |
|
Ads by Google
|
