The Olympus C-100 is a great, inexpensive way to step into digital photography.
Definitely a camera for novices, it offers lots of features to play with, extended battery life, and a price tag that won't leave you breathless.
Though the C-100 isn't as compact as Olympus's Brio cameras, at 210 grams, it's still relatively compact, and has the ever-popular clamshell design.
The C-100's interface has been simplified to a mere six control buttons, which are good-sized and easily accessed on the back of the camera.
However, having fewer external control buttons means that some of the frequently used functions, such as delete and some light-metering options, are now tucked away in menus, so you have to scroll a little to get to them.
While this is definitely a consumer snapshot camera, the C-100 does offer its user a few extra features, including some manual operation. You can adjust exposure compensation, metering, and flash settings. There's also a QuickTime Movie mode to take short video clips sans audio.
Other pluses: The USB autoconnect makes transferring photos to your computer supersimple (the camera appears as a drive on your desktop), and the battery life is pretty strong. We shot more than 100 photos, with heavy use of the LCD and the flash, using one set of alkaline batteries.
Those positive points aside, we have a few gripes. The C-100 may have 2M of internal memory, but Olympus doesn't include a removable memory card. If you want to shoot more than seven images before downloading, you'll have to purchase a SmartMedia card separately.
And the LCD, while viewable in sunlight, has difficulty reading low-light scenes, leaving the user to rely on the optical viewfinder.
Its picture quality is another weakness. Overall, the images lack sharpness, and the colours fall a bit flat. The white balance in the automatic setting is also off, performing under par compared with that of other Olympus cameras, which generally excel in mixed light.
And while the outdoor images fare a bit better, the indoor and lower-light images show visible noise in shadows and within skin tones. That said, the AU$499 (approx retail, incl GST) C-100 does offer a lot for the money, even with its shortcomings. For a snapshooter on a budget, this model can certainly do the job and do it pretty well. However, if you're looking for a step up in image quality, you may want to check out Olympus's Brio line.
Olympus C-100
Company: Olympus
Price: AU$499
Distributor: R. Gunz (Photographic)
Phone: 1800 802 665
2%
4%
I bought an olympus camera which offered the opportunity toget a proversion on the net althogh on trying to do this it would find the page. Can you tell me why?