Olympus Digital Camera

Olympus Camedia C-60 Zoom

The Olympus Camedia C-60 Zoom is a mixed bag. It produces very good images, but you'll need plenty of patience to get them. This 6.1-megapixel camera has a 7.8- to 23.4-mm (35mm equivalent: 38-144mm) f/2.8-f/4.8 3x optical zoom lens, which extends from the body when you slide the clamshell lens cover open to turn the camera on. While it has a certain style, we weren't especially fond of this design; the action wasn't smooth, and we crashed the C-60 in the field several times by attempting to slide the cover shut before the camera had finished its lengthy (averaging 10 seconds) boot-up process. To recover, we had to remove the batteries and reinsert them. The zoom controls were reasonably respon-sive, though the motor was loud. Users frame shots through an optical viewfinder (as with all the 6MP cameras here) or on a 1.8-inch, 134,000-pixel LCD. The smallest of the LCDs in this roundup, it was far better than that of the Kodak, and though it was brighter than the Casio's, it blurred more easily when moved.

Small, boxy, and well balanced, the C-60 has an uncluttered back (almost all controls are accessed through a four-button panel and one dial). Unfortunately, the camera's menus aren't helpful, and the lack of buttons means that you have to know that to reach some functions, you have to know to push given buttons repeatedly until the right choice ap-pears. If you don't remember, there's no way to find these functions in the menus. Once you get the hang of the menus, the camera does have a reasonable set of options, including six scene modes; aperture-priority, shutter priority, and full manual modes; two metering modes; macro modes (for shooting at ranges down to 4 cm); flash intensity control; and exposure compensation (to +/-2EV). The camera shoots at eight resolutions, from 640-by-480 to 2816-by-2112 pixels, and can capture either JPEGs or TIFFs, storing them on xD media. Shutter speeds range from 1/1000 to 8 seconds.

In the lab, the Olympus Camedia C-60 had mixed results. Booting up was painfully slow, averaging 10 seconds. Of course, you can simply leave the camera on for extended periods, thanks to the lithium ion battery, but there's no avoiding the 4.6-second recycle time between shots—one of the worst scores we've seen recently. If you have the patience, however, consider that the C-60 scored the best of these 6MP cameras on our resolution tests, at 1,350 resolvable lines, with a solid pixel transition score of 2.4% (average of horizontal and vertical). Our simulated daylight still life was sharp, clean, and bright; colors were a bit on the warm side, with slightly blown-out whites. Our flash shot was decently illuminated, though we would have liked to see a slightly more powerful flash.

London, 26 September 2005, Digital SLR photography is gaining in popularity as more and more people become hooked on the higher quality and flexibility that only an SLR camera can offer. Olympus today announces the E-500 - its impressive new addition to the E-System SLR range.

The Olympus E-500 will be available by the end of October. Delivering the versatility and power that are the hallmarks of a performance SLR the E-500’s impressive range of features include:

- A compact, lightweight and easy to handle body in a classic penta-prism design
- A professionally approved, user-friendly controls layout
- An 8 megapixel Full Frame Transfer CCD
- Olympus’ unique Supersonic Wave Filter to eliminate problems with dust when
changing lenses
- A shot preview function to provide easy viewing of images before they are
saved onto the memory card
- A high resolution 2½″ HyperCrystal LCD with 215,250 pixels
- Improved metering from a 49 area sensor
- A special filter to minimise image noise at high ISO levels
- Two memory card slots for Compact Flash and xD media cards
- Full manual control or a choice of 21 pre-defined scene modes

Available to buy alone, or as part of a range of kits, The E-500 will suit every photographers needs. Full pricing to be confirmed in October:

- BODY KIT includes E-500 body, BLM-1 rechargeable battery pack with BCM-2 charger
- SE KIT includes E-500 body, 17.5-45mm (35-90mm) 1:3.5-5.6, LBH-1 battery holder,
3x CR-123 batteries

- STANDARD KIT includes E-500 body, 14-45mm (28-90mm) 1:3.5-5.6, BLM-1 rechargeable
battery pack with BCM-2 charger estimated price around £600

- DOUBLE ZOOM KIT includes E-500 body, 14-45mm (28-90mm) 1:3.5-5.6, 40-150mm (80-
300mm) 1:3.5-4.5, BLM-1 rechargeable battery pack with BCM-2 charger estimated
price around £650

Classic Design

The Olympus E-500 has been designed with the user in mind. This means menus that make sense and buttons on the body that are easy to understand and operate, adding automatic settings for every imaginable situation and making the LCD big and bright enough so users can easily review all their shots.

A traditional penta-prism shape gives the camera an authentic and professional look and feel, the user-friendly controls and functions are easy to operate and the handgrip has been positioned so that the camera can easily be kept stable when shooting. The E-500 is ideal for numerous photographic situations, from capturing landscape vistas whilst mountaineering to documenting a city’s hustle and bustle.

Direct Button operation enables E-500 users to get to the settings they want without wading through endless menus or pushing arrow buttons excessively. Instead, most custom settings can be set by pressing one of the cameras eight direct key buttons for White Balance, Exposure Compensation, ISO, Flash Mode, Metering Mode, Auto Focus Mode, Auto Focus Frame and Recording Mode, and then turning a dial by thumb to customise the setting as desired. All settings are viewable at once on the camera’s control panel displayed on the LCD.

Skills Development

The E-500 includes 21 pre-defined scene modes, ranging from landscape to sunset to portrait, meaning it can be picked up and used straight away. However, as a photographer’s skills develop, the manual controls come into their own, enabling experimentation only limited by the photographer’s imagination. P/A/S/M modes come as standard.

To radically improve the metering capability a new 49 area AE sensor providing accurate exposure values for ESP metering is included. This uses a newly-developed evaluation algorithm. Conventional centre-weighted average and spot metering, high light and shadow basis spot metering and AE Lock functioning are also available too making the E-500 the ideal choice for any ambitious amateur or creative semi-pro wishing to develop their individual technique and style over time.

Image Quality

The E-500 provides outstanding image quality. An eight megapixel, Full Frame Transfer CCD offers a larger pixel area than an ordinary Interline Transfer CCD and as a result delivers images with a greater exposure latitude, more detail and less noise.

Dust is all around us and when swapping a lens on a digital single-lens reflex camera there’s a chance that a camera’s electro-statically charged image sensor will attract micro dust that can ruin photos. Olympus has developed a way for photographers to enjoy the freedom of using all the lenses of the Olympus E-System in the most challenging, dusty environments without compromising image quality. Every time the camera is turned on Olympus’ Supersonic Wave Filter, a patented ultrasonic technology that shakes at 35,000 vibrations a second to remove dust from in front of the camera sensor is activated. The spot-free photos that are produced liberate users from hours spent retouching photographs at the computer.

The camera is also equipped with a noise filter that can be turned on and off, as the photographer desires to minimise image noise at high ISO values.

Powerful Processor

The E-500 incorporates Olympus’ TruePic TURBO image processor to ensure images pack a punch with lifelike colour, resolution and contrast. TruePic TURBO also adds speed to picture taking. For fast burst rates, the processor uses the dedicated 64MB image buffer for up to 4 TIFF or RAW images at 2.5 frames-per-second. However, when using HQ JPEG images and extreme speed Compact Flash cards the number of frames a user is able to take is only lmited by the card size. For example, when using a SanDisk Extreme III CF card the camera can take around 4 minutes of continuous photography at 2 frames per second !

To further enhance the camera’s capabilities, two memory card slots, one for a CompactFlash and another for an xD memory card, are included.

Viewing The Results
Results can be viewed on the E-500’s 2½ inch, 215,250 pixel HyperCrystal LCD screen that offers many times the contrast of conventional LCD monitors. Views of recorded shots can be enlarged up to 14x to facilitate easy reviewing and the LCD also doubles as the camera’s easy-to-read status panel, giving clear and detailed information of the current settings in use.

Four Thirds

As the only completely digital system, based on the TIPA Award winning Four Thirds Standard, the Olympus E-System series of camera bodies, interchangeable lenses, external flash systems and other accessories provides professionals and serious amateurs alike with the excellence they demand. The new Olympus E-500 offers an affordable entry into the exciting world of SLR photography.