Rating: 
Summary: Extremely pleased with this camera!
Review: ****
The best selling points of this camera (for me):
- it works on AA batteries, and if needed, you can buy them in any country. (Buy rechargeables!)
- it has an awesome zoom (when coupled with the digital zoom)
- the pictures are beautiful, and can blow up to 8x10 on high resolution
- even when you shoot the shot at a high resolution, you can change it later to a lower res if you want to. But be careful, you can go down, but not back up!
- it has a panorama function that works pretty good, and it includes stitching the pictures together
- it fits on a tripod
- it is quite practical in size
- it is very affordable for what you get and the quality of output.
- you can view your pictures immediately on a television with the video cable
- you can view the image on the TV while you are shooting the picture (works great for family portraits so you can see the shot before it is taken and fix things that don't quite look right)
- I like the rapid fire shooting it has The things I can live with but wish were better:
- it takes any smart media card, but the panorama function only works if you buy the Olympus smart media card
- If you plan on using it for extended periods, you really need to buy rechargeables
- the digital zoom is not very clear when viewing the image UNTIL you actually take the shot. And you really need a steady hand. But the shot comes out perfect. The thumbnails look blurry, though the picture really isn't.
- The pics take a long time to load onto your computer if you try to load them through your camera. I bought the DAZZLE ZIO! SMART MEDIA READER and it downloads the images boom-boom-boom-boom...instantly! Excellent feature, but sold separately.
- Doesn't come with a carrying case (good carrying cases are expensive - also sold separately)
- it only comes with a 16mb smart media card, YOU NEED MORE! (cha-ching)...for a 128mb, which by the way is about all you need for a week vacation. Takes 167 pics at high resolution.
- It sometimes takes a long time to focus and I did miss a few action shots because of this, but if you are prepared and pre-focus the camera it works great. You can also use the rapid firing option and just delete the ones you don't want. I did that too and it worked great. Overall, this (in my opinion) was an excellent choice. I have had the camera for 2 months now and I LOVE IT! It was quite affordable if I were only buying the camera at... but when you add in the rechargeables, the recharger, smart card, carrying case, cleaning rags, media card reader, and tax, you do need to think of it more like an investment than a toy. The final bill came out to... OUCH! Would I do it again? You bet! Considering the stock market, it was the best investment I made all year. Do I regret not getting the 4.0 mp? No way, the zoom is not nearly as good as the 3.1, and when am I really ever going to print out an 11x14 picture (which is the only reason you ever need to go bigger than a 3.1.) besides, my printer isn't even big enough to print it, so I would have to have a shop print it - not realistic. Don't waste better options for more mega pixels, unless you are a professional, you really won't have the need for them.
Hope this helps!
Rating: 
Summary: I noticed someone reviewed it as not for beginners.....
Review: And they are SO Right, it has so many whistles and horns, I cant figure out how to use it. The instruction book is as long as a novel. I have never used a digital camera, so I can guarantee that this one is HARD to understand.
Once you figure out the important needs of the camera, the one part that is easy is getting the pictures on the computer. That is camera/computer friendly, and easy to understand.
I noticed that all pictures have red eyes, and what I don't like the most, is I love taking pictures spontaneously, you can not take moving pictures at all, and that is a big downfall when you have kids and cats or dogs. Anything moving comes out blurry every-time. It is not the camera for those that like to be on the go, or like to take pictures as they happen. Its more for the mountain and tree type families, that take pictures of still objects.
Rating: 
Summary: Could be a good camera but....
Review: but the performance is below par. Firstly, this camera has many great features (manual control of apeture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, flash brightness, and much more). It's fairly simple to learn how to manually change these features to fit the situation you're photographing. The camera design and on screen menus are user friendly, and the camera has a very solid feel to it (probably can take abuse well). Unfortunately, over the 3 days and 200 pictures that I had this camera, I don't think I had a single picture that I was impressed with. Most all of them were fuzzy, some of them blurry, or the white balance was incorrect, some of the pictures even had noise in them...and I tried almost every type of lighting condition possible, with tweaking every feature the camera had every time. I believe the problem lies with the autofocus. It's slow, irritably slow...and this camera has trouble focusing on many types of objects (dark, shiny, brightly lit). Should I have to use the auto focus lock every time? I don't think so. In auto mode, I get the same result in picture quality, even though the camera is supposed to set everything on its own. Also in auto mode, the flash is way to bright (thermo-nuclear bright), but can be toned down in manual mode. Finally, the LCD view-finder is noticeably laggy, or jumpy...which would be a problem when trying to snap a fast moving object, where you would have to snap the picture slightly before it was in the center of the view-finder to compensate. Now I've read great user reviews about this camera (which is why I bought it in the first place), but I honestly can't say anything near what anybody else has said. Traded in for a Fuji Finepix 3800 (close equivalent) and have had no problems so far at all (look for review soon). Well hope this helps anyone considering this camera!
Rating: 
Summary: What about filters?
Review: I am interested in purchasing. However does this camera any external type of filters such as a polarizer or UV type filter?
Rating:
Summary: slow focus, blurry images
Review: I bought this camera for it's optical 8x telephoto capabiltities.
This camera looks good, feels good, and has all the features to be a great camera. I was very disappointed to find that the it takes a long time for the autofocus to work, and the pictures come out slightly out of focus and grainy. I have complained to Olympus and I'm awaiting their response. I took the camera out of auto mode, and set the lens speed up to a 1,000th of a second. The images improved, but are still short of what I expected. This is not what I expected from a good camera maker like Olympus.
Rating:
Summary: Good zoom, but poor low-light capabilities & slow autofocus
Review: I bought this camera, then returned it... The 8x zoom is great, and it seemed like a great value -- but the electronic viewfinder is very poor, especially in low-light conditions, and the autofocus is too slow. I'm now trying the Fuji FinePix S602...
Rating:
Summary: Nothing but Problems
Review: I did extensive research before purchasing this camera and ultimately chose it because of the zoom. It took awhile to adjust to using a digital camera, but once I did, I was enjoying it. Suddenly, about a month after purchasing the camera, all of the images (through the viewfinder, on the display screen and the words of the menu options) became reversed as if through a mirror. I spent hours on the phone with Olympus customer service and no tech could figure out how to remedy the problem. I ultimately had to send the camera to Olympus for repair, where it has been for 4 weeks. They say a part has to be ordered. I think this is outrageous for new camera and if I had it to do again, would not have purchased the C-720.
Rating: 
Summary: A camera with many flaws!
Review: I got this camera as a gift, and let me tell you I was excited when I got it, who would not be Olympus makes great products, right? But all I ever had with this Camera is problems! First of all it is not compatible with Windows 95 or Windows 98, to upload your pictures, you have to use a wire that came with the camera to connect to your computer, hoping that the "removable drive" appears in Windows explorer, if not keep trying to get it to work, it took me several trys just to get my pictures on my 2 year old Windows 98 computer.
Second the biggest disappointment was that every picture I took has a pentagon or octagon shape towards the top of every picture I took, I called Olympus to find out what that is, and of coarse I got no where with them! So now I have a brand new digital Camera that works awful, does not work on my computer well, and damages every picture I ever took.
Finally the LCD screen is way to small, as compared to previous Olympus Digital Camera Models. I would pass on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome camera.
Review: I got this camera for Christmas just a few days ago. This is my first digital camera, and I'll tell straight out that it is excellent. The first picture I took (An ornament on my tree) came out perfect, literally. I showed a few of my relatives, who were all incredibly impressed, and rightly so - the picture is beautiful. I've heard a few people complain about problems with the screen, but I really haven't had any. It looks fine to me, and makes no difference whether it's in light or dark. I actually really like it. The picture software isn't slow on my computer, which is two years old. I'll say that it isn't the easiest to load, but it really isn't a hassle. And finally, picture qualities. They're really sharp and beautiful. Focusing is easy, and for me, it hasn't been as long as some people have said. Highly reccomended, especially for a first time user like myself.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Focusing
Review: I have a three year old Olympus Camedia C-2020 Z, with 2.1 MP and a 3x optical zoom. It is a fantastic camera!!
Hoping to get the same quality, but with a better zoom, I purchased a C-720. In fact, I went through two, because the quality of the zoom on the first one was so bad that the retailer thought that maybe it was broken. The retailer did tell me that they had heard of focusing problems with this camera. If the subject you are zooming in on is stationary (like a house), you can get a good picture. But if it is moving at all (like a person), the auto focus zoom struggles terribly to get a clear shot. I could not get one in- focus shot of my son ballroom dancing, even with a tripod, and trying the 'sports' action setting.
While in zoom, the camera sometimes cannot handle certain light angles and takes a very dark picture. The viewfinder also looks like you are looking through a screen, and the media card is hard to remove. Neither of these were issues with my C-2020.
Bottom line, I returned the camera and will wait until Olympus puts out a decent quality product again.
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