Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom Digital Camera with 10x Optical Zoom

Rating:
Summary: A good camera
Review: I bought this camera to replace my C-2100. It's a good camera except for the lack of stabilisation and image noise at low light or long zoom. In low light or indoors, flash is a must.
Contrary to another review, you CAN override factory settings on power-on with your own. You must navigate the menu system to do this. You can also edit photos on the camera.
The macro and super-macro are great for photographing flowers. The 10X zoom and 4X super or digital zoom are great for wildlife and landscape.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent camera for all-round shooting
Review: I purchased this camera approximately a month ago, and I couldn't be more thrilled with its performance. I had used two older Olympus cameras that could be considered the precursor to this C770. They both had similar features and zoom capabilities, although they didn't quite have all the bells and whistles this C770 has. Both of those older versions I used at work for my job as a wildlife biologist and they did an excellent job taking "nature" pictures. I therefore knew what kind of quality I would be getting when I purchased this C770 for my personal use. It may be cliche, but the C770 has gone beyond my expectations. Although I'm still learning how to use all the extra features, it has done everything I've needed it to do thus far. It has taken crystal-clear indoor pictures of people using the flash. I've been thoroughly impressed with the outdoors pictures I've taken, particularly the ones of people and my dog. When I bought this camera I also purchased a Cannon Pixma ip5000 printer, and together they have produced clear, colorful, incredible pictures (after a search for the proper combination of paper and settings on the printer). I'd say that the pictures are better than those I was getting developed from my old SLR camera using standard 35mm film. I also purchased an Olympus 256mb XD card, and I'm able to get approximately 260 pictures on the highest quality settings. It also takes approximately 15 minutes of video with that 256mb card, and that's just an added bonus to the picture taking capabilities of this camera. I would make a recommendation, however: purchase an extra Li-ion battery to have as a spare in addition to the one battery the camera comes with, as this camera doesn't use typical AA batteries (like it's predecessors did). The charger that comes with the camera works in about 2 hours, so recharging batteries is fairly quick. I had grown accustomed to using an SLR camera and having the ability to adjusting shutter speed and aperature. This C770 allows you to use manual settings and adjust speed, aperature, and ISO for more versatility. However, even the auto settings (essentially "point and shoot") abilities of this camera are great. Although I haven't tried them out yet, I'm looking forward to trying the black-and-white and sepia settings for taking more artistic pictures. I was also impressed that the camera is smaller than it's predecessors. I'd highly recommend this camera to anyone who wants not only a simple camera to use that has automatic settings, but who also wants the flexibility to adjust aperature, speed, and has a 10x zoom (combined with 4x digital zoom for 40x total) for taking pictures of distant features. The 10x optical zoom was essential for someone like myself who loves taking pictures of the great outdoors and animals. One last recommendation: if you want to buy a digital camera, I'd recommend buying at least a 4 megapixel camera such as this C770. I've been very pleased with the picture clarity of this 4 megapixel camera.

Rating:
Summary: Olympus C-770 Is Excelent
Review: I've just bought this camera for approximately a month from
somewhere else to replace my old Olympus C-2100 which is
accidently broken during a recent vacation. So far I like this
C-770 a lot. I still miss my C-2100 though, for the Image
Stabilizer. Here are a few things that I like about this C-770:
- It has 4 megapixels.
- 10X zoom is tremendous. You can do a lot with it.
- 14X Super Zoom is very handy. With the Super Zoom, the
resolution is set automatically to only 2mp. This is OK,
since I'm used to the C-2100 that has 10X with 2mp.
- Very clear picture even with full zoom. I heard some
complaints about not able to focus on full zoom - but I did
not experience this problem at all during normal light
conditions.
For low light and full zoom, it's a little challenging to
focus. But this could happen with any cameras even with the
Image Stabilization.
- This camera also works with remote control (unlike the C-765
that doesn't support remote control at all???). The remote
that come with the camera package, RM-2, provide only the
basic function: shooting. Fortunately, I have the
RM-1 that came with my old C-2100. In addition to just
shooting, I can also use it to do the zooming.
- The MPEG movie is excelent. I have not got a chance to
compare the quality of this MPEG mode and the normal Quictime
mode yet - but so far I like this MPEG mode a lot. It saves
a lot of space. I could actually record a long movie if I had
a large xd card. With my 128mb xd, I believe I could make
up to 8-9 minutes movie. I intend to use the MPEG movies, and
convert them to a VCD format so that I can play on my DVD
players. With Quicktime, it's hard and time-consuming to do
so. If you don't like this MPEG mode, you can always set your
C-770 to do the normal Quictime instead.
- The built-in flash range of this C-770 is better than the
C-765. It can work up to 5 meters (16ft) instead of just 3.5
meters with the C-765.
- Other capabilities that I like, but never get a change or
resource to try yet, are: external flash, external lenses for
Telephoto, wide-angle, and macro modes, and external
microphone.

Something that I wish this C-770 to have are:
- Need to come with a better battery. It comes with the LI-10B
battery that Olympus doesn't give any estimates on how long it
can be used for each recharge. So far I don't have much to
complaint since I can use my camera for a while each time
before I have to recharge the battery. I need to buy a new
battery, the LI-12B for $49.95 from Olympus. According to
the spec., this LI-12B should allow you to do approx. 175
shots for each recharge.
- Optical zooming will not work when recording movies with
sounds. Somewhere, someone mention that I need to use
external microphone to take movies with sounds and to use
optical zoom at the same time. I have not got a chance to
try this yet.

Before I decide to buy this C-770, I also have some thoughts
about its twin, the C-765. I bought this C-770 instead, for
the remote control, MPEG4 movie mode, and the external flash.
I also did some research on other brands - some comes with
Image Stabilizer and some not. The Image Stabilizer (like my
old C-2100) is something that is nice to have, but the picture
quality is something that I must have. The zooming and the
capabilities of adding external telephoto lens for extra
zooming are something that I really want to have - I can take
candid pictures of my kids, at home or anywhere in the crowds,
with ease.



Rating:
Summary: Somewhat Disappointed - Noisy Pics and 'wierd events'
Review: I've only had my C-770 for two weeks, but am disappointed in the grainy-ness of the shots. I tested all 4 file 'sizes', and ISO ratings. My 2 Meg. Canon has less grainy-ness, and I was expecting a 4 meg camera to be 'twice as good', which it isn't, objectively speaking. Also, intermittent wierdness: 1) I take a picture, it shows up on the LCD screen, i.e., 'proof' that the picture exists, then later, has disappeared from the Card! Won't show up in Camera or from a reader on my computer! Wierdness: 2) I took about 10 pics that all were around 1.7 meg. Later, most of them are around 500k, On the card! I WAS viewing them through "Picture It" and resizing for email, but am positive I only did a 'save as' to a folder on my computer, not re-saving back to the Card. Another minor complaint is the manual on CDRom, I had to print the whole thing out for any practical use.
I personally don't see any point of the low-res video capability and will never use it.

Rating:
Summary: Very dissapointing ....
Review: I've owned several Olympus cameras (35mm and digital) and considering the $500+ price tag I am disappointed by the features. The built-in software features are the same as the bottom-of-the-line digital camera and retains its obvious shortcomings (eg can't override factory settings on power-on with your own, can't save image rotations, etc). The TRUEPIC AF gives very good focus in the best lighting conditions (although very sloooow to focus) but has failed me several times on no-flash indoor shots. 10X zoom is great but auto-focus has difficulties on full zoom (blurring easily). Zoom control responds with a 1-2 seconds lag: would be hard to use in action scenes. Battery life doesn't match the marketing promise: a spare battery is a MUST.

Built-in double flash does a much better job than the traditional single/small built-ins. I tried to fit a generic external flash on hotshoe; doesn't work because the built in flash can't open with the external flash fitted so it doesn't trigger the external slave! Nothing in the manual about using external flashes. Great LCD and electronic viewfinder. Box included a remote trigger. I haven't tried the movie mode yet.

Overall after only a few days of use I'm not sure it's worth the near $600 price tag considering some pretty basic flaws.


Oct 2004: Additional notes to my previous review:

I've now had a chance to try the video mode on the C-770 (and compared it to my Panasonic mini-DV GS15):

++ 10X zoom gives enough zoom for indoor filming; not sufficient for good outdoor shots (esp sports). In any case a tripod is a MUST when zooming at more than 8X/10X
++ MPEG4 file format is great: compact files, easy to share on PCs; not so easy to share on DVDs: to few players can handle MPEG4 yet
-- Focus is very poor: Olympus seems to use the same focus logic as for the picture mode, ie *very* slow. This means that the camera refocuses everytime you use the zoom or the scene moves and it takes a few seconds to readjust (blurred image in the meantime!). This is a MAJOR shortcoming: I have yet to produce a short clip of a focus quality anywhere near my Panasonic (or any good videocam for that matter)
-- Colours came out very poorly when shotting indoors; must use an additional video-light (this is not a problem with my Panasonic)
-- You can't burn DVDs with the software provided (got to pay an extra $50 or so): not what I expected from the marketing brochure
-- Need at least a 512MB card to get decent recording time: a very expensive add-on

This is still a long way from being a good substitute for a video camera: I would not buy it if you are looking for a mini-DV replacement.

Rating:
Summary: A great digital camera
Review: The Olympus C-770 ultra zoom is everything it is cracked up to be. It is however a complicated camera with a lot of sophisticated features. If you want to just take snapshots this camera will do just fine but you will get better value out of a lower priced less full featured camera. If you are a serious photographer but do not want to buy a digital SLR this is a great camera.

What I like: This may sound silly but it sure is nice to have a camera that you don't have to remember to turn off the flash all the time. It is a joy to not have to worry about this ever time you power up the camera. Because I do nature and landscape photography the 10x optical zoom and super macro mode have finally freed me from my film SLR. In TIFF or SHQ resolution at 10X one can image a small bird at 8 to 10m with sufficient resolution to see a high level of detail in the processed image. This is comparable to a 500mm lens shooting iso 400 film. The lens is fast enough that one can hand hold the camera in this situation as well. It takes practice but it can be done. For macro images, being able to focus at less than 5 cm is a great feature, allowing ultra close ups. Being able to set just about anything manually is a real plus too, but you need to be very proficient and familiar with the menus to do this with any speed. I also like the video feature, that with a 512MB card allows 30 minutes of recording time. For me this eliminated my need for a digital video camera as I seldom shoot a scene that lasts more than a few minutes.

What I don't like: The default settings are not to my liking. You can set up to 4 personal modes, but it would be nice if simple things like camera resolution did not have to be reset every time you power up the camera. The minimum aperture on the lens is f8. This does not give enough depth of field when you want it, such as in long exposure nature close ups. While the camera is nice and compact I would prefer slightly bigger with a faster lens. Also it would be nice to have 5 megapixles in this package. Oh well maybe the C-780 will have that. Last I don't like the looseness of the zoom. This seems to be a common feature of the Olympus zoom mechanism. Perhaps it is a response to people leaving the lens cap on, but having a fine camera like this with a lens barrel that rattles is a little disturbing.

As has been mentioned in previous reviews you really need to read the full manual included on the CD to get the most out of this camera. It is nice to think I'll finaly be able to leave film cameras at home when I head out into the field.

Rating:
Summary: The best camera on the market under $1000
Review: This is one of the greatest cameras you can buy for under $1000 excluding proffesional SLR cameras. When someone goes to a store like Best Buy and looks around for a digital camera I always see people unsure of their product choice as if they don't necessarily know what they are getting and end up with a camera that doesn't hold up to there expectations. However the olympus c-770 will hold up to your expectations and possibly even go beyond your expectations. You may look at the price and think "wow $600? I'm not willing to pay that much for a camera when I can just buy one for $400 or less!(Lets just say the Sony Cyber Shot)." Anyone who thinks that is wrong. If you compare the two cameras you will see a significant price difference and quality difference. The SCS(Sony Cyber Shot) which represents most inexpensive cameras may have alot of the megapixels youve been told about which is good but when you consider other factors contributing to the camera 5 or so mega pixels won't seem a good enough reason to buy it instead of the olympus. A few factors that play its part in a good digital camaera are these few things. Mega pixels(SCS's best version has more than the olympus's c-770[OC])Then you need to consider the type of memory card( SCS has a regular type of memory card and the OC has an XD picture card which increases the storage space significantly and causes the pictures taken to be saved more effeitiently which leads to a better picture(although not noticable until you print the picture at a large size.) Then you consider the zoom(SCS has 4 opticle zoom and 3 digital zoom that comes out to a maximum of 12 zoom, the OC has 10 opticle zoom and 4 digital zoom.) As you can see the OC has much more zoom which is something really important. A more complex thing is the type of picture format which is also very important. Sony's can't reach TIFF format when the OC can. This is very important to the picture. Then comes the focusing. OC is much faster at this and can achieve certain points of focus in even the worst of conditions. After considering all of these things the OC in result can 80% of the time achieve a much better picture. Other things to consider that the OC is better at is it's ease of use, manual controlls, variety of options "including night seen' which alows you to take pictures in any condition, extended flash for more light, looks, reliability, endurance, weight, metal body, the 4 megapixels and finally the ablity to adapt to your skills as you get more and more advanced. BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE ABOUT THIS CAMERA IS THE ABILITY TO TAKE MOVIES! WITH SOUND! I am totaly amazed about these movies. It films in MPEG4 which films with the quality you watch T.V in! Also the sound reciever works fine. Over all I highly recomend this camera! Ignore the price. It's well worth it! "I compared it to the sony cyber shot since that camera is the best a cheap camera can get, I used it to represent all cheap cameras with the SCS's same abilitys or less.Thankyou for reading my review.