1. Introduction 2. Specifications 3. Body & Design 4. Body & Design 5. Operation & Controls 6. Displays 7. Menus 8. Menus 9. Timing & Performance 10. Features 11. Photographic tests 12. Photographic tests 13. Compared to... 14. Compared to... 15. Conclusion 16. Samples

Timings & File Sizes

The Olympus C-50 Zoom would rate as 'average' for overall timing performance. The biggest difference experienced was in startup times which varied from 4.4 seconds to 6.7 seconds depending on whether the zoom was positioned at wide or telephoto at power off, the camera returns to the previous zoom position at startup. Otherwise auto focus times were respectable, write and playback times were average and shot to shot was fairly good. I was a little disappointed to see a 0.2 second shutter release lag when using the LCD monitor.

Timing Notes: All times calculated as an average of three operations. Unless otherwise stated all timings were made on a 2560 x 1920 SHQ JPEG image (approx. 2,100 KB per image). The media used for these tests was a 128 MB xD-Picture Card.

Action	Details	Time, seconds
Power: Off to On	Lens extension, Wide angle	4.4
Power: Off to On	Lens extension, Telephoto	6.7
Power: On to Off	Lens extended, Wide angle	3.5
Mode: Play mode	Image displayed	2.1
Play: Magnify	To first magnification level (1.5x)	<0.5
Play: Thumbnail view	Nine image displayed (3x3)	1.4

Action	Details	Time, seconds
Zoom from Wide to Tele	Full zoom from 38 mm to 114 mm (3 x)	2.3
Auto Focus LAG	Wide angle	0.8 - 1.0
Auto Focus LAG	Telephoto	0.9 - 1.5
Shutter Release LAG	Using Viewfinder	0.1
Shutter Release LAG	Using LCD Monitor	0.2
Total LAG	Wide angle	0.8
Total LAG	Telephoto	0.9
Off to Shot Taken	Wide angle	4.6
Shot to Shot	Wide angle	2.6

Auto Focus LAG is (roughly) the amount of time it takes the camera to autofocus (a half-press and hold of the shutter release button), this timing is normally the most variable as its affected by the subject matter, current focus position, still or moving subject etc. This timing is an average.

Shutter Release LAG is the amount of time it takes to take the shot from the moment you fully depress the shutter release button, measured both as a time including auto focus and a time assuming you have already pre-focused by holding a half-press of the shutter release.

Continuous modes

The table below shows the results of our continuous shooting test, indicating the actual frame rate along with maximum number of frames and how long you would have to wait after taking the maximum number of frames before you could take another shot. The media used for these tests was a 128 MB xD-Picture Card.

A pretty disappointing performance, I would have hoped for 1.5 or 2.0 frames per second. Additionally the camera's buffer doesn't appear to be particularly large meaning you're not going to be able to fire off many shots before having to wait for it to write. Not the best. With Continuous AF enabled the burst rate slows to approximately 0.6 fps (1 shot every 1.6 seconds).

File Write / Display and Sizes

Timings shown below are the time taken for the camera to process and "flush" the image out to the SD card, the timer was started as soon as the shutter release was pressed and stopped when green buffer indicator on the LCD monitor disappeared. This means the timings also include the cameras processing time and as such are more representative of the actual time to "complete the task". The media used for these tests was a 128 MB xD-Picture Card.

Two megabytes for a five megapixel JPEG is about what we would have expected, you're very unlikely to be able to spot any artifacts at such low compression levels. The slight disappointment must be the combined processing and write speed, just 375 KB/sec for an SHQ JPEG. It looks as though 2560 x 1920 HQ would be most peoples first choice, a good image size (image quality compromise) and acceptable write speeds.

Low Light Auto Focus

This test is designed to measure the minimum amount of light under which the camera can still focus. The focus target is our lens distortion test chart (shown here on the right), camera is positioned exactly 2 m (6.6 ft) away.

Light levels are gradually dropped until the camera can no longer focus. This is carried out at both wide angle and telephoto zoom positions (as more light reaches the focusing systems with a larger aperture).

This test target is the optimum type of subject for most "contrast detect" AF systems (as it has a vertical line at its center), you should consider the results below the best you could expect to achieve.

Light intensity (Lux) = 2.5 x 2^EV (@ ISO 100), 10.76391 Lux = 1 foot-candle (fc)

For a camera without an AF assist lamp the C-50 Zoom performed very well at wide angle, 0.6 EV is really quite dark and around the average performance at telephoto. An AF assist lamp would have helped a lot at the telephoto end.

Battery life

We ran the camera through our new battery life test. This test is designed to be fair and comparative to each camera and battery type:

• Take 4 shots without flash
• Wait 2 minutes (50% of the time powering the camera off)
• Take 1 shot with flash
• Wait 1 minute
• Repeat

Batteries are fully discharged and recharged before the test and all cameras were reset to their factory default settings. Here are the results:

The Olympus C-50 Zoom and its 1090 mAh Lithium-Ion battery pack put in a good performance of almost three hours, this would translated to a single fully charged battery lasting a days worth of average shooting.

1. Introduction 2. Specifications 3. Body & Design 4. Body & Design 5. Operation & Controls 6. Displays 7. Menus 8. Menus 9. Timing & Performance 10. Features 11. Photographic tests 12. Photographic tests 13. Compared to... 14. Compared to... 15. Conclusion 16. Samples