Rating: Summary: Lens needs work Review: It seems like a great camera but the previous reviewer is right about the lens. I liked the feature of the f 1.8 lens for low light situations. The barrel distortion however is awful. I rejected this camera. I was ready to order one and went to Circuit City to look at one. I checked out a post in the viewscreen and it was bowed as I panned to each extreme. I am back looking at other cameras.
Rating: Summary: compact&nice&powerfull Review: My first impresion are great. The cam loocks fine, plenty of control...more than you can manage, i think. I'have only tried automatic mode (sorry ,i'm learning the manual) and the pics i took are explendid, nice grey scale, definition, focus, magnnific and realistic colours...... The manual is 200 pages¡¡¡, but you really learn what do you have. I'didn't enjoy so much with photography , since 25 years ago, developing my own pics, of my old OM-1. Now the quality of digital imagin is smilar, and in many cases superior, and with the help of a picture program you really can touch the sky. I rate this cam in a 95% by the quality of the pics it gaves and the optical...i really think impresive. If u like photography and you are a creative person, you would like this cam.
Rating: Summary: Great camera, not-so-great lens Review: Many people have written wonderful reviews of the C-4040. I have to say that I agree with most of them ... this is a great camera with wonderful functions.Unfortunately, there's something most people have overlooked about this digicam. The lens is so flawed that I'll go as far as to say the C-4040 delivers worse photos than the old C-3030! Before you doubt me completely, hear me out. Most digital cameras suffer from something called "barrel distortion" at the wide-angle setting and "pin-cushion distortion" at the telephoto setting. What this means is, if you take a picture of a house and look closely at the sides of the house, the up-and-down lines of the sides of the house will "bend" outward at wide-angle and "bend" inward at telephoto. On some digicams you can barely see this distortion without a magnifying glass. But with the C-4040, the barrel distortion at the wide-angle setting is so bad it actually makes it look like buildings are being squeezed from above and the sides are bending out! This isn't a problem if you never use the lens at wide-angle, or if you never take a photo of something with lines that go straight up and down, but I take photos of buildings on a regular basis. I upgraded from a C-3000 to a C-4040 a month ago. Although the C-4040 delivers higher resolution photos than the C-3000, the barrel distortion on the C-4040 was so bad that I took it back to the store and went back to using my C-3000. Unless you NEED a 4-megapixel camera for 11x14 prints or larger, don't get this camera. Get a C-3000 or C-3030 and you'll be MUCH happier. Trust me. If you do get a C-4040, use the lens in the middle range. Don't ever go wide or tele because up-and-down lines will bend one way or the other.
Rating: Summary: The Best for the Non-Professiona! Review: I cannot imagine a better camera for the beginner. It is easy to use, point and shoot.
Rating: Summary: A dream come true Review: I've had my eye on the C-4040z since about January this year. After extensive reading, the choice came down to the G2 or the 4040. The 4040 won out simply for of features-for-price. And I've not regretted it... (well, until I saw what the 5050 has to offer and now all the regret I have is whether I should have waited for the release of the 5050.) I've had the camera now for about 3-4 weeks. I've done some experimenting with the controls and considering this is my first REAL forage into the world of photography, I think I've lots of mileage ahead. The sepia tone function tends to make ordinary shots look surreal. Photographers have been experimenting with shutter speed for eons, but it just seems so much more awesome to be experiencing the effects for myself with this camera. And the remote control is a nice improvement on the timer photos of old. Good camera; just about as idiot-proof as it can be yet at the same time providing all the manual controls a non-professional might need to produce all types of photos. I've had so much fun with this camera, it is unbelievable. The quality of the pictures is astounding. At 2272x1704 (which gives you 16 picts on the 16MB card), you can manipulate it in so many ways and not lose either quality or content. I took picts at 1024x768 and the quality was not distinctly different although I assume that the quality would probably decrease with magnification. All in all - this is a wonderful acquisition. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in photography as a hobby. It's definaltely a little too much for someone who only wants a point and shoot for vacations and the family dog.
Rating: Summary: Superb camera and well worth the money Review: I bought this camera after doing a fair amount of research into high quality digital cameras. It was my first one and I was not disappointed. The quality of the images are just fantastic, the camera itself is easy to set up and use and it's not too heavy to carry around if you're going hiking or whatever. The only gripe I would have about it is the time it takes for the lens to "wind out" but it's a minor issue.
Rating: Summary: The best for pros or amateurs who want to shoot like a pro! Review: Having used quite a variety of cameras from large format to 35mm to digital, I love this camera! It's my third digital (just upgraded from the Olympus 3030Z) and it rocks. This camera has great features for a photographer who likes the manual settings of the SLR, but is also very easy for anyone to use in the automatic modes! And wait til you see the pictures. Phenomenal. Well worth the price. I've put away my SLR's (Nikon and Minolta) and am now using this exclusively. You'll love this camera. ...
Rating: Summary: Great 4-Megapizel Camera Review: I have had my C-4040z for 8-months. It replaced an Olympus C-2020z. The 4040 is a fine camera with many features. The 1.8 lens is great for low light conditions where you don't want to use a flash. The pixel mapping function remaps bad pixels if they occur and the noise reduction is effective for photos taken at shutter speeds < 0.5 seconds. The photo quality is excellent and with 4.1 megapixels, you can crop any image and still have good resolution for printing. The only accessory I added to the camera is the FL-40 external flash unit. Expensive, but worth the investment if you need to shoot flash photography. For those new to photography the "P" mode (auto) will produce great photos. Once familiar with the 4040 or those with experience, the Aperture mode and Shutter mode is where you will do most of your photography. One can also run the 4040 at full manual allowing the user to control all of the cameras functions.
Rating: Summary: great photos, much improved over c3040, comparison to Canons Review: If you read my review on the Canon S30 page, you'll think I am a flake. That's because in that review I explain why I switched from Olympus c3040 to the Canon S30 (after my olympus got stolen). Now I am writing to explain why I took back the Canon and went with the current generation Olympus c4040 despite what I said in that review aboutr the c3040. Here I also compare the Olympus c3040 to the Olympus c4040: they are very different cameras. Here's the executive summary: contrary to what I thought, the c4040 is not just a 4 megapixel version of the c3040. It's got much faster components, faster smart media access, faster LCD, focus, startup. And also important, it's got a much better menu interface. In other words, it's current generation components, in the exact same physical package of the previous generation c3040. So here are some of the details: 1: The c4040 is much faster than the c3040 in recalling images that you've taken. It's comparable to the Canon S30/40. 2: The menus are improved over the c3040, being much easier to navigate, better designed, and with a useful shortcut capability. I like the shortcut feature even though I thought it was cheesey at first. The menus are displayed on top of the image you're looking at (or the shot you're composing) rather than on top of a blue screen background. The Canon menus are still nicer and better designed, but not so much better anymore. 3: The LCD screen is more useful: it's wysiwyg, in that it adjusts to show you what the shot will look like, as you adjust the settings. For example, if you adjust the exposure down a notch or two, the image you're composing in the LCD also adjusts darker. This may have been the case in the c3040 but I never noticed. I hated that LCD and rarely used it. The c4040 LCD seems much faster, tracking your motion in real time, and much more accurate, and reflects the reality of the photo you are about to take fairly closely. Still not as quick or nice as the Canon, but close. 4: The low light lens of the cXX40 series is amazing. You cannot take pictures in low light situations with other cameras that come CLOSE to what you can do with this camera. I gave up that possibility when I bought the Canon and now I am glad to have it back. That is, if you have a low light situation and you are not within flash range, then no other camera will do. I have the bad photos from the Canon to prove it :-) 5: I had great results with the slow flash mode, capturing a nice sunset, and then briefly flashing the subjects of the photo to have my cake and eat it. I couldn't believe how nice the picture came out. I bought the Canon S30 because it was much better than the c3030 as far as performance and features and usability was concerned. I gave up low light capabilities reluctantly but felt it was better in every other way. But, I ended up returning the Canon S30 when time after time I was disappointed with the pictures it took. The flash's range seemed very limited. Pictures were too dark. Wouldn't fire the flash when it ought to in automatic mode. The camera had a hard time with photos I know my c3040 had no trouble with. Fiddling with the Canon is very easy and almost fun because it's UI is fantastic and very fast, but in the end it's the pictures that matter the most, and the Canon's were just too disappointing. I was flabbergasted because everyone raves about that camera. Here's a few more tidbits: 1: The Canon UI and menus are still much nicer than Olympus's improved design. 2: The Olympus lens cap sucks. It might be a requirement with their special low light lenses. 3: If you're tempted to get the Olympus 720 series, which has a big zoom, just make sure you realize that you are giving up the low light lens. If not for that, I would definitely have bought that camera. 4: Buy some NiMH batteries and a new generation quick charger. You can get 1700 and 1800 mAh batteries now, and chargers that recharge in an hour. I just took my camera on the road and brought just ONE set of batteries and my portable, tiny, smart charger. Worked great! 5: Check for bad pixels. I just got back from vacation and noticed I had some bad (stuck on) pixels in my c4040. That sucks. I bought it 29 days ago so I was able to return it for a new one. I am going to check it RIGHT NOW for bad pixels. This is why I buy cameras at stores from now on instead of the web. Returning on the web is too hard. 6: It's nice that the c4040 will let you take 3 megapixel pictures. The Canon S40 only supports 4 megapixels and 2 megapixels (and lower). I used 3 megapixels on my trip because I didn't want to run out of shots with my memory cards.
Rating: Summary: My First Digital Camera Review: I purchased this camera a few days ago, and have had good luck with it so far.. This is my first digital camera, but within 10 or 15 minutes, I was shooting pics like a pro. The computer hook-up was easy, the camera appears as an additional hard disk on your computer.... Even with Windows 98, I was downloading the pics within 15 minutes. The one really stupid part of the camera is that if you turn the camera on before removing the lens cover, the camera freaks out (cause it can't extend the lens).. It makes some scary noises and then starts beeping! Once I get in the habit of removing the lens cover first, this should be a small issue.. But why didn't they make the lens cover attach so that it could extend along with the lens? Oh well.
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