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Last week, I told you about one of my choices for Best Digital Camera Under $500 – the Fuji Finepix 3800. This week, I want to tell you even more about the other top choice: the Olympus C-740 3MP.
I have to say that for the most part, I’ve enjoyed this camera tremendously. The picture quality is second to none, the zoom is incredible (10X optical zoom), and it has more features than any techno geek could ask for. There are, however, a few drawbacks that I’ll talk about later. First, the good stuff. As a budding photographer and full-time news reporter, I needed something that would take pictures in all sorts of conditions. And, I wanted very high quality pictures. I liked the Fuji Finepix 3800 (a lot), but being the geek that I am, I wasn’t satisfied with the “simple” features that appeal to users who don’t want to learn a new language in order to take pictures.
As I mentioned before, there were no other cameras in this price range that came even close to providing 10X optical zoom. This was almost reason enough (for me) to buy this camera. The quality I got from every other camera that relied more heavily on digital zoom just gave me fuzzy pictures. Mind you, the digital zoom on the C-740 isn’t all that great either. That’s why I leave that feature turned off. (Although, yes, it’s an amazing 30x digital zoom!) The C-740 has a dizzying array of features and settings, so bear with me as I list them ALL for you, so you know what you’re getting with this camera. I don’t know about you, but it would take me a year to even think about using every one of them.
-Shooting modes: Auto, portrait, sports, landscape+portrait, landscape, night scene, self-portrait, program shooting, A/S/M (aperture priority/shutter priority/manual shooting), “My mode,” and Movie record.
-Camera drive modes: single-frame, sequential shooting, high speed sequential shooting, auto-focus sequential shooting, and auto-bracketing
-Resolutions: 3200 x 2400 TIFF,JPEG (SHQ,HQ)
2048 x 1536 TIFF,JPEG (SHQ,HQ)
2048 x 1360 (3:2 format)JPEG (SHQ,HQ)
1600 x 1200 TIFF,JPEG SQ1 (High,Normal)
1280 x 960 TIFF,JPEG SQ1 (High,Normal)
1024 x 768 TIFF,JPEG SQ2 (High,Normal)
640 x 480 TIFF,JPEG SQ2 (High,Normal)
-Shutter speeds: 1/1000 sec. – 16 sec.
-Image Effects: Black and white, Sepia, White board, Black board, 2-in-1 shooting mode; Still image: Resize, Trimming; Movie: Edit, Index
On top of all that, you get white balancing, red-eye reducer, super close-up mode, fulltime autofocus, and the usual format card settings. There’s a few more, but you’ll have RTFM all the way through. ;-)
So, what about picture quality? Because I’m picky about image quality, I leave the camera in either HQ or SHQ modes. These take up more room on the xD memory cards (this camera, like the Fuji ships with a piddly 16 MB card. Do yourself a favor and get at least a 64 MB card or higher.), but I think the sacrifice is worth it. So, the pictures you see here and on the Image Comparisons page are done mostly in a higher resolution. Take a look and see why I like this camera so much.
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The four pictures above I took during a driving event at Limerock Park in Limerock, CT this past June. They were all taken off high performance cars traveling down the front straightaway at speeds between 90-120 mph. As you can see here, if you move the camera along with the object, no matter how fast, most of your pics will come out looking pretty sweet. (These were all taken in "sports" mode). I'm sure a little more practice could produce even better pics in order to give the viewer a better sense of speed.
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This was one of my best shots this past Fourth of July. In fact, it was the cover photo for my newspaper that week! Obviously, this was taken in night mode. Night mode can be tricky because the shutter stays open longer than any other mode, so if you move the camera, you’ll get some interesting “motion” effects. The second picture is a good example of this.
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This last picture was taken in auto mode, with Super Macro mode turned ON (this allows you to get within a few centimeters of your subject and still focus clearly – a great feature!). It was dusk, but the camera adjusted for the lack of light in the back yard and it captured a rich amount of color (with flash on).
So, you see, you’d be hard-pressed to find a camera this inexpensive that produces this kind of quality images in a variety of settings.
The not-so-good features that kinda annoy me… With all that said, there are a few “quirks” with the C-740 that I feel I need to make any of you potential owners aware of.
First, the shutter lag. Given the fact that half of my shots as a news reporter aren’t posed, I get one shot at most things: that one hand shake, that gesture a politician makes while speaking, a firefighter in action. For some bizarre reason, the C-740 seems to have some issues with shutter lag. You softly press the shoot button to get the camera to focus, lock in on the object, press firmly to shoot, and…..nothing. I don’t know why this happens, but it does. It could be the way I’ve used the camera, but nonetheless, it’s annoying.
However, for those interested in sequential, high-speed shooting, this camera rocks! I don’t have the pics to post, this camera WILL take auto-focused, sequential shots in rapid succession, for those in-action shots. It’s just too bad that in order to prevent the shutter lag, you have to turn this mode on.
Second, red eye, red eye, red eye. Let me start by saying this is more of a user quirk than a camera quirk. I’m a bit lazy when it comes to reading the manual. I like to figure things out myself. So, I haven’t fully explored all of the flash settings other than ON, OFF, and Red-Eye Reducer. Well, if you are not using the RER when photographing people in low-light situations, prepare for a lot of touchup work in Photoshop. I’ll leave it at that.
Three, where’s my sound??? The true bummer of this camera is its lack of sound recording. This feature was almost enough to send me back to the Fuji, but I realized that would be silly, given the other features I’d be giving up. If I really wanted a good video camera, I’ll go buy a video camera! Anyway, you are only limited in how much video you can record (@ 15 fps/320x240 pixels) by the size of the memory card you have installed, unlike the Fuji, which limits you to a maximum of 30 seconds per clip. If you like the features of this camera, you can move up a step to its big brother: the Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom 4MP. You’ll get sound recording and 4 MP resolution. The price is coming down on this model, so I’m recommending it to those who want to spend maybe a few extra bucks.
The final drawback of this camera is that when you are using the flash, it eats batteries for lunch. I warn you in advance, get yourself at least 8 rechargeable batteries. Or 12. When shooting in light, you can take hundreds of pics before having to change batteries. With the flash, be prepared to change them after about 20 shots or so. Then again, I see this with every single digital camera out there, so I can’t knock this particular camera because of battery usage.
Finally, with the C-740/750, Olympus gives you its easy-to-use Camedia software for Mac and PC! Nice! The Fuji only supplied PC software. I haven’t explored much of the software, but you can create your own calendars, photo albums, panoramas, etc. The only thing I thought was really lame on Olympus’ part is that this is NOT the Pro version of Camedia, so you can’t save anything you do. That’s pretty cheap, if you ask me.
As always, you don’t even need the software if you don’t want to use it. As long as your computer has the appropriate drivers installed, you can treat the C-740 as a regular storage device.
I think that’s about it! I’m not sure I can tell you any more about the Olympus C-740 3MP Ultra Zoom without having you use it yourself. No matter what, I don’t see how anyone could go wrong with this camera, or its bigger brother, the C-750. It’s loaded with more features than you will probably ever use, it will give you quality that will rival cameras costing four times as much, and it will become your favorite toy in no time. I’ve had mine now for more than three months and I wouldn’t think of trading it for anything else. See for yourself.