Olympus C-720 UZ

Opinion: Its an easy to use camera. Small enough to grip but not so small that it would be hard to handle. It has fast shutter speed for sports photography and red eye reduction for Portraits. The zoom lens seems to focus pretty well. Not to bad on battery life and comes with a 16MB Smart Media card. Images can be downloaded directly from Camera to your PC without card Reader.

Funny? My C-720 has Manual focus. How long did you guys have the Camera?

Opinion: I have used the C-720 for two weeks. This is my first digital camera, and I am surprised and pleased at the photo quality.The telephoto is sharp and convenient. The digital zoom is useful at 2X but questionable at 3X. I have rechargable batteries and am able to use the camera all day before recharging. The download to the computer is quite fast. I am fond of the spotmeter, and the focusing is adequate. Some focus problems and color balance issues should be solved as I get more used to the camera. No problems so far - I am quite pleased.

Opinion: I've used this camera for two weeks and just getting comfortable. My previous camera was an automatic SLR from 20 years ago. I bought the camera for family pics (eg. kid playing soccer) and general interest nature shots.

The zoom is what sold me on the camera and really is sharp (much sharper than the Tamron 80-210 zoom I'm used to). There is some barrelling at wide angles (showed very strongly in macro mode). Long distance closeups work very well with excellent detail. The camera is well balanced and very easy to hold steady. I believe I have less camera shake than with my SLR.

Overall I like the controls but you need to look in the display panel to determine what the settings are. A top panel would be useful. Action shots work better now that I know to partially press the shutter release to preset the focus and exposure (probably an old trick but new to me!). It is difficult to tell if the camera is turned off when in the Play mode with the lens retracted.

The Mymode setting is very useful. As all the Auto modes, except Program mode, record in high quality only (I think), I've set Mymode to 640x480 so I can quickly switch to low res pics for email and work purposes.

I found the viewfinder less useful in low light. The best thing I found was to leave my other eye open to help frame the shot. That caused some parallax problems when zooming in on closer objects.

I completely missed that my batteries were running down. A better indicator would be nice, plus better help for putting the double A's in correctly.

Focusing seems accurate but it would be nice to have a manual focus for some situations. I once had trouble on a flat surface, but was easily able to correct that.

I didn't buy the camera for sound or movie so don't mind the lack of capabilities in these areas. The flash is more powerful than many others so I doubt I'll miss a hotshoe. I haven't done a bounce flash in years so that didn't bother me either.

I love being able to use Windows File Manager to manage files on the camera (using USB). My previous digital camera experience through work was one that required its own software for the transfer. I've even used the camera to transfer files from home to my work computer, kind of a super floppy!

All in all, this camera seems well suited for what I bought it for. I have to say I'm more pleased than I expected.+

Opinion: I just wanted to point out that there is an error in the specs listed here. The C-720 does NOT have a manual focus.