Olympus C-7000 / C-70 Zoom Review: Digital Photography Review

Rear of camera controls

Ignoring the three buttons which run along the top of the camera (which we have designated as 'under your thumb', above). The rest of the C-7000's controls are fairly straightforward, a mode dial, two control buttons and the four way controller.

Mode Dial

	Play Enter play mode, displays the last image taken or the last image on the media card (detailed later in this review).
P	Program Auto Exposure This is the camera's main shooting mode, the C-7000 doesn't really need a separate point-and-shoot 'Auto' mode. The only thing missing is a program shift option but we wouldn't necessarily expect it on a camera at this level.
A	Aperture Priority Exposure In this mode you select the aperture and the camera will calculate the correct shutter speed depending on metered exposure, exposure compensation and ISO sensitivity. Use the up and down arrows on the 4-way controller to change aperture. Available apertures: • Wide: F2.8, F3.2, F3.5, F4.0, F4.5, F5.0, F5.6, F6.3, F7.1, F8.0 • Tele: F4.8, F5.6, F6.3, F7.1, F8.0
S	Shutter Priority Exposure In this mode you select the shutter speed and the camera will calculate the correct aperture depending on metered exposure, exposure compensation and ISO sensitivity. Use the up and down arrows on the 4-way controller to change shutter speed. Available shutter speeds: 4, 3.2, 2.5, 2, 1.6, 1.3, 1, 1/1.3, 1/1.6, 1/2, 1/2.5, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/8, 1/10, 1/13, 1/15, 1/20, 1/25, 1/30, 1/40, 1/50, 1/60, 1/80, 1/100, 1/125, 1/160, 1/200, 1/250, 1/320, 1/400, 1/500, 1/640, 1/800, 1/1000, 1/1250, 1/1600, 1/2000 sec *
M	Manual Exposure In this mode you select the aperture and the shutter speed from any combination of the above. The left and right arrows select aperture, up and down select shutter speed. The camera will display the difference (+/- 3 EV) between the selected exposure and the metered exposure.
	My Mode My Mode are essential user memories, from any of the PASM modes you can record the current settings into one of four 'My Mode' memory banks. Switching to My Mode you can then recall these settings from one of the banks. Virtually every setting on the camera is stored in one of these memory banks including zoom position and selected exposure. Settings stored in each bank can also be edited via a menu.
SCENE	Scene Exposure A range of pre-programmed camera settings useful for taking photographs in particular situations: • Portrait • Sport • Landscape + Portrait • Landscape • Night Scene
	Movie clip The C-7000 provides two movie recording sizes of 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 at either 30 or 15 fps with audio. At 640 x 480, 30 fps you are limited to a maximum of 20 seconds, anything below this (eg. 640 x 480, 15 fps) streams directly to the storage card and hence you are only limited by the amount of storage available.

* Aperture / Shutter speed limitation

Because the C-7000 has a combined aperture and shutter mechanism there are certain limitations attached to the higher shutter speeds, the shutter speed 1/2000 sec is only available with an aperture of F4.0 or smaller.

Buttons (Record mode)

AEL /	Auto Exposure Lock / Custom Press to measure exposure and lock it for the current exposure, if you hold this button the display will change from AEL to MEMO indicating that the exposure will be locked for all subsequent exposures (until AEL is pressed again). This button can alternatively be customized to perform other functions (see below).
QUICK VIEW	Quick View 'Quick View' actually performs exactly the same function as turning the camera into Play mode, all normal Play features are available. In my opinion this button should simply have been labeled with the Play icon (like the Pentax 750Z) and the separate Play mode removed from the mode dial (as it's superfluous now).
	4-way controller arrows In all exposure modes the left / right arrows are used to adjust exposure compensation (+/- 2 EV in 0.3 EV steps). In the manual exposure modes (A, S and M) the up and down arrows are used to adjust shutter speed or aperture.
OK	Menu / Confirm Used to switch to the current mode menu or to confirm menu / prompt options and selections.

Custom button possible functions (Record mode)

AE Lock
AF Lock
Macro
Drive
ISO sensitivity
Scene
My Mode 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Slow sync flash
Noise reduction
Digital Zoom
Fulltime AF
Function
INFO
Histogram
Audio record
Frame Assist
Image size / quality
White Balance

Buttons (Play mode)

	Rotate Press to rotate the displayed image through 90 or 270 degrees. This does not rotate the actual JPEG file but instead sets the orientation EXIF flag.
	4-way controller arrows Left and right browse one image at a time, up and down jump ten images forwards or backwards.
OK	Menu / Confirm Used to switch to the current mode menu or to confirm menu / prompt options and selections.