Owners Opinion:
Olympus C-2100 UZ (Jim Alden, 13 Oct 01)
 1.9 million effective pixels 38 mm - 380 mm (10x) zoom | Jim Alden's Rating
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OpinionOkay, I'm one of the people who will spend countless hours going back and forth between different options to figure out what I really want. When I wanted a new digital camera, the main points I looked for were these:1) 10X optical zoom (or as close as possible) After living with a Sony Mavica with 10x optical, it was hard to imagine not having that zoom. 2) Printable resolution. What I mean by that is, I wanted a camera that would print out an 8X10 and look like a film photograph. 3) Price. I made a budget of about $700. This was my goal. When I found the Olympus C-2100UZ I was curious. At 2.1 MegaPixel, it wasn't up to par with the newer cameras. My big question was, is 2.1 enough? In my opinion (now) the answer is clearly yes. Here are a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I printed a 2.1MP image on a good epson printer and I defy any laymen to know it's not film. You may not want this camera if you want to print larger pictures. So as far as picture quality, this camera does cut the mustard. Another reason I think 2.1MP is enough is because, even at this setting, the pictures are memory hogs. If I had even more resolution, I'd want to shoot everything there, and each 128mb SmartMedia card would only hold a handful of shots. The memory it takes to increase resolution goes up considerably and unless you blow it up big, you cant really tell the difference. Like a Ferrarii in the real world, just going to the market. Though its a very fast car, your groceries arrive home just as fast in a Honda Accord. Until SmartMedia becomes really cheap (and its not so bad now,) I seem to be happy shooting regular snapshots at 1024x768 which triples my amount of pictures on the card. Honorable mentions were: Canon PowerShot 90is (no macro, $200+ more (street price) but slightly higher res. Fuji Finepix 6900. Nice and small, higher res, but only 6X optical zoom (I really like 10x!!!) I also like the NiMh Reghargable AAs, the remote control and conncetions for TV viewing and all the flexiblity over exposure if you wish to get creative. Lastly, this camera handles flash very well. Well balance light fill and exposure. With the street price under $600, its a great value. Note: I purchased a factory refurbished unit. I cant tell it from new. You should ask any discounter if the product is gray-market or not. Stay away from gray-market products. You have no warranty, the instructions are usually not in english, and the TV format is PAL instead of NTSC, so you can't view it on your set. I hope this helps. | ||||
ProblemsNegatives: SmartMedia card included is 8mb. I added a 128 (good brand) for $89. You can find generics for less. Also, the camera always defaults to HQ picture res. Maybe I can find a setting to automatically default it to SHQ. This is actually not such a big deal. |
