Raymond64786
Active member
This is my first personal digital camera (although I've used Sony Mavicas and various Kodaks elsewhere) ... so far I'm quite happy with my purchase ($1015AUD with a 64 meg memory card). I decided on the C-200 over the Canon A20 which I was also looking at due to what I heard about the ability of this camera to handle low light conditions (it has a max shutter duration of 1/2 second and maximum sensitivity of ISO400 which beats the Canon A20 hands down ... I'm sure the brighter lens also has somethign to do with it but I'm a novice when it comes to cameras as my misuse of terminology here will show!), the fact that its eyepiece has a dipoter adjustment (very rare in digital cameras at this price point and very useful since I do wear glasses) and what I regarded as a superior control layout (eg. able to do everything with just the right hand and none of those annoying rotary switches to jam or get busted).
Image quality I've listed as average because even at ISO100 it does have a noticeable amount of noise when used indoors with or without the flash. By eyeball, I don't see it as being any worse than sample pictures I've seen on this site even from cameras significantly more expensive (of coures it doesn't hold a candle to the Cybershots with their noise reduction though) ... I doubt you'll find any sensor much better than this for noise at this price point but it annoys me enough to drop the image quality rating to average.
Having said that, I was VERY impressed with the ability of this camera to do low-light shots. Streetlight-lit shots, whilst a little noisy (but lets face it, even the Sony Cybershot without noise reduction is noisy in such situations) are no problem, even with full 3x optical zoom, as long as the subject isn't moving too quickly (although you can get some neat effects with moving cars and a 1/2 second shutter duration). Curiously, with my monitor properly set as far as gamma, brightness, etc. goes, low-light shots taken with the camera appear brighter and its easier to see things in the picture than in real life!
The camera IS all plastic (apart from the lens cover itself ... presumably either to make sure that the lens is well protected or to allow the 'Olympus' badge to appear shiny!) but it feels really solid. None of the panels flex or move at all when you press on them, even the big front panel under the sliding lens cover, unlike some other cameras (such as my old 35mm Ricoh point-and-shoot). Even the screen seems quite solid, it doesn't feel 'soft' like some other displays. I've slipped a bit of acetate over it just in case but if you're more careful with things than I am or screen glare in bright sunlight annoys you, you won't need it.
Some reviewers seem to have a problem with the popup flash which, unlike previous models, pops up the moment you slip the lens cover across. I can see how it being up can be annoying as you need to remember to close it (you need to close the lens cover THEN close the flash or it won't stay down). I don't think it really poses a problem as far as holding the camera with 2 hands goes however ... as long as you don't actually NEED to use the flash the camera doesn't mind if you hold the flash back down when you're taking pictures and its not sprung to the extent that it'll annoy your left hand.
Finally, one thing that REALLY impressed me was how fast this camera is to save pictures and to dump pictures through the USB cable. It really does transfer at the full 12Mbit/second that USB allows, even through the USB hub in my keyboard. Windows 2000 detects it with absoluptly no problems and mounts it as a standard drive (remember to tell Windows you're pulling it out before you do though or it may complain!). The Olympus Camedia software doesn't seem to like Win2k though so it can't read camera settings through the USB cable (although each picture you take is stamped with mode, shutter speed, apature, ISO setting and focal length).
IMHO this camera is well worth a look, especially if you're already considering the Canon A20. The $1015AUD I paid for the camera and a 64 meg card translates to probably about the $500USD mark but in the US or Europe you should be able to get it considerably cheaper.
Problems:
Looks like Olympus really want to keep that sliding lens cover ... if you're not careful when you close it, it'll rub against the retracting zoom lens which can't do it any good ... the cover DOES have 3 'click' positions, one fully open, one closed enough to get the lens to retract but short of actually HITTING the lens and one with the cover fully closed (I hear this is an improvement on their film cameras where the middle stop point doesn't exist) but IMHO they SHOULD have at least put a little solenoid to stop the cover from getting anywhere near the retracting lens until it was fully retracted ... it shouldn't be a problem once you're aware of it but its something you'd want to tell a friend who you might lend the camera to.
Another gripe is that it doesn't seem possible to hold settings such as ISO sensitivity lock (you can lock the ISO settings to auto, 100, 200 and 400) or white balance over between power-ons, a bit of a problem if you're shooting for a while in the same situation but want to retract the lens and put the camera your pocket between shoots.
My final gripe (although this would only affect very few people) is that the diopter adjustment is perhaps slightly too conservative ... I'm severely shortsighted and whilst having the diopter adjustment right down DOES help, it doesn't go quite far enough (although enough to at least frame shots now). *sigh* I guess you can't have everything ... hehe
Image quality I've listed as average because even at ISO100 it does have a noticeable amount of noise when used indoors with or without the flash. By eyeball, I don't see it as being any worse than sample pictures I've seen on this site even from cameras significantly more expensive (of coures it doesn't hold a candle to the Cybershots with their noise reduction though) ... I doubt you'll find any sensor much better than this for noise at this price point but it annoys me enough to drop the image quality rating to average.
Having said that, I was VERY impressed with the ability of this camera to do low-light shots. Streetlight-lit shots, whilst a little noisy (but lets face it, even the Sony Cybershot without noise reduction is noisy in such situations) are no problem, even with full 3x optical zoom, as long as the subject isn't moving too quickly (although you can get some neat effects with moving cars and a 1/2 second shutter duration). Curiously, with my monitor properly set as far as gamma, brightness, etc. goes, low-light shots taken with the camera appear brighter and its easier to see things in the picture than in real life!
The camera IS all plastic (apart from the lens cover itself ... presumably either to make sure that the lens is well protected or to allow the 'Olympus' badge to appear shiny!) but it feels really solid. None of the panels flex or move at all when you press on them, even the big front panel under the sliding lens cover, unlike some other cameras (such as my old 35mm Ricoh point-and-shoot). Even the screen seems quite solid, it doesn't feel 'soft' like some other displays. I've slipped a bit of acetate over it just in case but if you're more careful with things than I am or screen glare in bright sunlight annoys you, you won't need it.
Some reviewers seem to have a problem with the popup flash which, unlike previous models, pops up the moment you slip the lens cover across. I can see how it being up can be annoying as you need to remember to close it (you need to close the lens cover THEN close the flash or it won't stay down). I don't think it really poses a problem as far as holding the camera with 2 hands goes however ... as long as you don't actually NEED to use the flash the camera doesn't mind if you hold the flash back down when you're taking pictures and its not sprung to the extent that it'll annoy your left hand.
Finally, one thing that REALLY impressed me was how fast this camera is to save pictures and to dump pictures through the USB cable. It really does transfer at the full 12Mbit/second that USB allows, even through the USB hub in my keyboard. Windows 2000 detects it with absoluptly no problems and mounts it as a standard drive (remember to tell Windows you're pulling it out before you do though or it may complain!). The Olympus Camedia software doesn't seem to like Win2k though so it can't read camera settings through the USB cable (although each picture you take is stamped with mode, shutter speed, apature, ISO setting and focal length).
IMHO this camera is well worth a look, especially if you're already considering the Canon A20. The $1015AUD I paid for the camera and a 64 meg card translates to probably about the $500USD mark but in the US or Europe you should be able to get it considerably cheaper.
Problems:
Looks like Olympus really want to keep that sliding lens cover ... if you're not careful when you close it, it'll rub against the retracting zoom lens which can't do it any good ... the cover DOES have 3 'click' positions, one fully open, one closed enough to get the lens to retract but short of actually HITTING the lens and one with the cover fully closed (I hear this is an improvement on their film cameras where the middle stop point doesn't exist) but IMHO they SHOULD have at least put a little solenoid to stop the cover from getting anywhere near the retracting lens until it was fully retracted ... it shouldn't be a problem once you're aware of it but its something you'd want to tell a friend who you might lend the camera to.
Another gripe is that it doesn't seem possible to hold settings such as ISO sensitivity lock (you can lock the ISO settings to auto, 100, 200 and 400) or white balance over between power-ons, a bit of a problem if you're shooting for a while in the same situation but want to retract the lens and put the camera your pocket between shoots.
My final gripe (although this would only affect very few people) is that the diopter adjustment is perhaps slightly too conservative ... I'm severely shortsighted and whilst having the diopter adjustment right down DOES help, it doesn't go quite far enough (although enough to at least frame shots now). *sigh* I guess you can't have everything ... hehe