Olympus Camedia C-4000 Zoom Digital Camera

Pros: Picture quality
Cons: Poor battery life, tendency toward pixilation, poor manual

My camera is nearly two years old now and still takes excellent pictures. Three weak spots: 1) it eats batteries; 2) pictures of plaids or brick walls pixilate easily; 3) The printed manual is not helpful, especially when it comes to finding the digital zoom.

Still, the picture quality generally is similar to the quality of my old OM-1 Zoom Lens Reflex film camera. This camera is lighter and easier to use, and the pictures more easily lend themselves to cropping and other editing.

An editor recommended the C-4000 Zoom to me and I could hardly be more pleased. It's my second digital camera, but certainly not my last. And at the current street price, it's a real bargain.

And it would be even better if I could just figure out how to use the digital zoom!!!!

Pros: Good picture quality
Cons: Unreliable, long delays between pictures. Bad interface which forces you to press OK between pictures.

I've always been a big fan of Olympus and have bought many film and digital cameras of theirs in the past. However, I've been extremely disappointed with the C4000 thus far. The first time I had trouble, it was the camera freezing up on me. I returned it to SoundTrack and after waiting over a month for Olympus to fix it, I received my camera back with an updated motherboard. Nice, but with the new motherboard, my old manual was out of date and Olympus wanted to charge me for another manual. Fine. Now, however, my Smartmedia cards have been displaying strange behaviour. On two different cards (one 64Meg the other 128 Meg), I can no longer read them in my Sandisk smartmedia reader. Another card I have is read perfectly. I don't know if this had anything to do with the Camera, but with all I've been through with this thing, it wouldn't surprise me.

Although this is my first digital cam, I had been involved with 35mm photograhy....I can only say great things about this camera....simple enough for the everyday Joe and enough advanced features to keep the Pro busy with creativity. It is a fantastic camera to "grow" with and I would not look for it to be outdated for a long, long time. Picture quality is excellent as is the software that comes with it. I am overwhelmingly pleased and would highly recommend it to everyone.

This camera is wonderful! If all you want to do is get good snapshots, the learning curve is very easy. Just point and click and get great pictures! If you want to take advantage of all the neat features of this camera it's a bit more difficult. Read the manual and then play with it, it's not like you are wasting any film. My old digital camera took decent pictures if you planned the scene just right, were just the right distance away and had just the right amount of light. The C4000 takes much better pictures and does all the planning for you. (unless you would rather do it yourself) The image quality is unbelievable! The 3X optical zoom along with the 3.3X digital zoom allows shots that were impossible with my old camera. I was also able to take pictures from a moving vehicle that turned out great! Beginners, intermediate and even professional photographers will find something to love about this camera. I would recommend it to everyone!

I recieved this camera for christmas gift and I couldn't be happier. yes, the lens is slow to come out on turn on, not big issue. The flash is awesome! Got great pics in a pitch black room, flash lit the whole room up very evenly and clean. pics print exellent, i've still to learn all the features this camera has. This camera will get you that shot in the dark when others won't. no sound on video minor downfall, video cable to view pics on TV very nice, especially when out with family and friends, which is included with camera. Buyers get a 128 card for it to take advantage of high end pics. I would have liked to see better detail in the manual of the manual features this camera has, it lacks descriptive info. USB interface, no need for reader. Menus are very nice, user friendly, larger lcd display a plus also. In automatic settings, great point and shoot photos, will take time and effort to use manually but worth the effort, the added features are super. I'd recommend it to anybody.

this camera is perfect for beginners. With only a few uses you can produce high quality pictures, get great effects, and crop your pictures before you even download your pics. I am very happy with mine and when combined with a good photo program for your computer like photoshop and the like...the possibilities are endless. very user friendly and fun.

I'm really impressed of this cam. This is the second dig.camera in my life(I had Canon S-200 before).It took me about 2 hours to get used to its interface which is readable and the position of keys in the back of C-4000 is comfortable to operate. The macro ability is the thing I really love. And all the manual controls - it is great that after using SLR camera for years, I can do the same (and much more) in this exciting device ! I developed some of pics taken in 1600x1200 res. in a proffessional lab - and the only thing I can say is.... WOW !!!. I have also some pics taken by my previous S-200 and I need to say that Olympus has a very very sharp lense.And I can carry it in my pocket too !!! ;) .

Replaces my D-460, takes super shots, we have hooked it up to our 50inch big screen and they are absolutely crystal clear. Especially love the special settings, it comes with 5 plus your own two special modes you can set up. This is a great camera. Also seems to not to be so hard on the batteries. I recommended rechargable batteries.

I found easy-to-use (on program setting) with complex option for those who care to use them. This is a superb digital camera for either a first-time digital user, or more experienced photo devotee. Not the smallest, but will fit in a jacket pocket and larger size make for easy to use controls and very easy to see view screen. AA battery option is outstanding for those who leave on the shelf for months and don't want a dead camera - I use rechargeable NiMH AA and get many pix even with flash. I have sold several friends on this unit by showing them the pix.

Pros: Excellent photos and battery life
Cons: Maximum 128Mb SmartMedia memory capacity renders this camera obsolete.

I purchased this camera a little over a year ago. The photo results are good and the battery life is good with rechargable batteries as long as you don't leave the LCD screen on. I am more than disappointed however that I am now unable to purchase a memory card over 128Mb (+/- $40-), and then only for a price that's twice what a comparable 256Mb card goes for at a discount (+/- $20-).
I feel deceived by Olympus since no one ever gave any inkling that SmartMedia cards were being sidelined in favour of other technology. As far as I'm concerned, this camera is now obsolete.

Pros: Nice overall features and pictures...
Cons: ...undermined by untrustworthy software and functionality.

While seemingly a decent camera, it did, however, ruin the filing of an important work-related event. After taking many pictures of a 30th anniversary event with various VIPs, seemingly without any problems at all, I hurriedly went back to my computer to download the images off the PC card only to find nada, nothing, zilch and zero! >:-0

I can only surmise that the card was not in snug enough, but then why absolutely no indication of that -- no warning, no error message, no indication that anything was the least bit awry.

Obviously, this has left a VERY bitter taste regarding this camera and I have certainly lost any confidence that this is a product I can trust and rely on. Save this for those events and occasions that don't really matter anyway.

Third Olympus digicam (D340L, D360L), and by far the best of the three. Virtually limitless choices: flash options, picture size, preset image options. Still trying to learn all of settings, but I would heartily recommend it to anyone...buy this one.

I love the camera its my second Olympus digital. It takes great pictures and night photos are great. Not for the novice though, a little complicated to use quickly and takes sometime to learn where every thing is located and how to access it.

I started to buy the Olympus D-550. The Office Supply store I bought it from was out of stock and substituted the C-4000z for the same price and added a 64mb card. At first I was skeptical because I only wanted a "pocket" digital. After seeing the pictures, and learning the features, which does take a novice some time, I can only say....Wow! I do wish it came with a case and better lens cap. Haven't priced these and other accessories (additional lenses, etc.) but they can't be as good a deal as the camera. Highly recommended. It's not a toy.

If I could I would by myself one,this one I got was for the wife. The pictures like I said were excellent.I printed alot of them for family,they looked just like the picture in the preview window. BUY IT! BUT IT! BUT IT!