Olympus Stylus 400 (mju 400 Digital)

Opinion: I have owned and used this camera since 2003 so my low rating may seem strange, but I've only just been able to afford a replacement! The rating is possibly slightly mean - this is a nice looking camera with a good solid feel, but it's let me down on many many occasions and I just don't feel it justified it's original 320 pound price tag - I'm amazed it's still available for sale - it's the reason I won't buy another Olympus.

Opinion: Compared to the street value listed, I paid around $120 for an open box of the Olympus Stylus 400. For that price, it's not a bad camera, it's rather inexpensive, lightweight, easy to pack in your bookbag or purse. I liked the sleek design, the cover slides to the side and the camera turns on. It made for a nice feature and the weatherproofing was a plus.

However, I wasn't impressed with the colors of the picture. The clarity seemed good (at least compared to the panasonic I had). Sometimes on zooming the photos would come out blurry. I did take a few nice shots of landscapes, some close ups of butterflies on flowers which came out really well.

Opinion: The camera, though adequate for an amateur photographer, leaves a lot to be desired. I spent more time trying to fool it into taking the picture I wanted, than I spent taking remotely decent pictures. If you use the optical zoom at all, you MUST have a tripod, without it the images are extremely distorted. I learned this the hard way Christmas afternoon when I looked at the pictures I took of Christmas morning.

The auto focus leaves quite a lot to be desired and more often than not, did not manage to find the appropriate focal length.

One of the camera’s main selling features is it’s weatherproofing, which I also found useful. I damaged my previous Olympus in a snowstorm while taking photos of friends skiing. The Stylus survived snow, rain, and a rather unfortunate meeting with an ocean wave, intact and still taking the same quality of photographs.

Overall as I said, the camera is great for outdoors, it takes some wonderful scenic shots, and makes for an excellent, though expensive point and shoot. Incidentally I gave it a average rating for construction because the door over the memory card area was held closed by a very small and thin plastic clip. I use past tense for a reason. The good news is the rubber seal still holds the door closed.

Opinion: Great point & shoot camera with easy selection of lots of options to use. My close-up & landscape pix's are super cool. My Epson prints them as good as a photo place. AND, it has a great download pdf. 139 + 32 page manual with in depth instructions and help. That made my entry into digital cameras easy to follow.

Opinion: I use a Nikon D100 as my regular camera and wanted a pocketable point-and-shoot. If you're after a beatifully designed well made compact camera then the 400 won't disappoint. No, it's not great in low light and with no indication of shutter speed camera movement is an ever-present threat in less than ideal lighting conditions. Accept the limitations and it will reward with sharp, well-exposed rich images (nicer out-of-camera colour than the D100). It's fast to activate for the first shot and a delight to carry. As a primary camera its limitations will likely frustrate with its lack of manual over-ride and non-existant exposure information. Overall, I'm happy withit for what it is.

Opinion: I had purchased this camera as a pocket carry-around to accompany my DSLR. I was impressed by the waterproofing and design, so I went ahead and bought it on sale ($150 off, + free 128MB card). How could I go wrong?

This is the worst digicam I have ever bought. My ancient 2.1MP Canon S300 ELPH stomped on this -- sadly.

Opinion: I, as many others here, am disappointed with the low/average light level performance. I had a D450Z for several years that performed better. I wish I had it back, but it was stolen. Unless the subject is brightly lighted or within the very limited range of the flash, the result is a blurred picture. I guess this is because the camera slows the shutter speed too much for hand-held shots. Too bad!

Opinion: This is my second digital camera, I bought it because I found it in a good price and was searching for a small take everywhere camera (Optio S4 would be my choise but it was a lot more expensive). I had no idea about the camera's features so there were a couple of surprises for me. Good surprise was the excelent built and beautiful design, remote control in the package, fast times, nice battery (I bought a spare, no-name, soo cheap). Bad surprise was... NO manual controls ! Has any of you learned about photograpfy using a soviet build almost no electronics ZENITH camera? You could then understand how I felt.. Well, reading the reviews here.. I guess that is why we are called "amateurs". This is a camera for those that don't know and don't want to know about photography! But that doesn't mean not taking nice fotos. I managed to take some of the best pictures in my collection with this one (also surpising) but for difficult conditions like a dark room, the lack of manual settings is a problem (camera is going on very HIGH ISO, also the noise too, so that picture quality is going very LOW..) I'll soon get the Minolta A2, till prices for a decent SLR get "logical". For anyone that doesn't enjoy photography but just want to take nice pictures under normal light conditions this is a very beautiful small camera that will not dissapoint and also weather-proof. So, it's perfect for enjoy the snow or rain and the beach and to keep you out of dark places!

Opinion: I'm basing my evalution on the Stylus 410, which I just bought, vs. the Leica D Lux, and the Canon Elph-500 (IXUS) which I tried out before buying the Stylus.
I wanted a small compact camera that was quick to jerk out of my pocket without any fiddling, and shoot. The Leica D Lux was beautifully presented with a nice leather case and small leather pouch for spare battery and memory card with a beautifully printed manual. The layout of the different menus was very accessable with large enough buttons that you didn't have to grope. Problem: even though the images were sharpe, the color always seemed washed out. At $840.00, it was much too expensive for a 3.2 point and shoot.
Next I tried the new Canon Elph (IXUS) 500. Problem: Too tiny, it was hard to work with as all the buttons were too tiny and close together. The optical veiw finder was also too tiny and hard to view through.
Now the Stylus 410: Although small, it isn't too small that it's difficult to work with. After familierizing all the controls, which was very easy, and going out on a photo excursion photographing the neighborhood landscape, closeups of budding flowers and interiors, I find the full the 8"X11" blowups were rich and full with color, unlike the Leica, and much easier to work with then the Canon. This is a very pocketable take anywhere (waterproof) tourist camera. (I may be biased as I just bought the Olympus Camedia C-8080 for serious work and which I find is a wonderful camera, but to bulky for a 'take anywhere camera' tourist camera, -and to think, it was only $150 more then the Leica D Lux point and shoot.)