When the Olympus C-2000Z was announced it surprised some people, everyone was expecting Olympus to release a 2 megapixel 3x zoom digicam to match Nikon, but most expected it to follow along the lines of the popular D600/D620L (C1400XL) digital SLR.

Instead Olympus went all traditional, going for a compact camera look and a viewfinder instead of the SLR "through the lens" of the previous Olympus model.

We now know of the C-2500L which promises to be a 2.5 megapixel SLR, although little more than that is known.

The specifications, however were impressive, the standard "2 mega" resolution of 1600 x 1200, a small compact size (only 4" / 10cm wide), fast response and processing times, good build quality and importantly a big fast F2 - F2.8 (35mm - 105mm equiv.) zoom lens.

Other interesting features include automatically adjusting ISO (the camera automatically boosts the CCD output to gain sensitivity and thus reduce blurring from camera shake in low light circumstances) and manual features such as aperture and shutter priority.

Most people considering a 2 megapixel digicam have the C-2000Z somewhere either first or second on their list (along with the Nikon Coolpix 950).