Rating: 
Summary: A picture is worth...
Review: Knowing nothing about the digital camera world I set out 6 months ago to buy a camera that was low cost (in case I wanted to go back to the 35MM world) yet with reasonable photo quality. What I found was a gem in the Olympus D-380. This camera has whet my appetite for a more sophisticated model, but it will always be the easy one to stick in the car, take on a trip, or just shoot those family reunions. The photo quality is superb for such a small camera, and the features are simple and easy to use. I'm not expecting to get photos from a camera of this price and function in National Geographic but I have put some great shots on the family web page and even printed out a rare moment with the kids and framed it on our hallway wall. The Quicktime video is great in the right light, with the only drawback being there is no sound. Let me highly recommend this to you if you are new to digital photography and are looking for a model to learn on, or if you want that perfect, small travel sized camera to take on the plane with you. Heck, shoot your kid's wedding with it. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Just enough camera to do the job, easy to use software
Review: I love this camera! It is easy to use, does a great job with all the snapshots I want to take, and does not seem to eat batteries like my friends' digitals do. The software is some of the easiest to use that I've seen. It is very good for both indoor and outdoor pictures. I also use it to take pictures of items for resale. It does a fair to good job for this purpose...can't quite get as close up and as much detail on small items as I'd like, but I think that to get better I'd have to get a much more expensive camera. The only thing about the camera that has been a little problem is the lens cap on/off switch. My S.O. does not always remember to close it before putting the camera back in the case...which drains the batteries. I also suggest you get the power adaptor to use when downloading images and an extra card and case.
Rating: 
Summary: Software scam raises price ...
Review: I like my Olympus. It fits my needs. It comes with CamediaMaster 4.0 software so you can download to your computer. You can make calendars and postcards. But guess what: It has no e-mail function! In fact, you can't even get your photos out of the program and into other folders to use in projects, or letters. But on the main screen is an icon for Pro-Camedia...which leads to the Camedia site online, where you can compare the specs for the two programs and see how Pro-C has e-mail.... Why would someone want photos on their computer if they couldn't use them in e-mail? It's not a good enough camera for someone to do art stuff with and, say, high quality printing...of calendars......
Rating: 
Summary: Camera pretty good, slight "learning curve"...
Review: Camera, for general purposes, gets four stars. 1/2 star off for software, 1/2 star off for weak documentation.
The camera itself, it takes good pictures, once you get used to the lag-time between when you press the button to take a picture, and when the shutter actually takes the picture. And you learn more by actually using the camera, the documentation isn't the best.
The software that came with it is not intuitive. Problems with USB was only solved by going online, ... For the price it is a good camera, point and shoot-wise. Read other reviews in addition to mine, now that I know all the little tricks to it, it's a nice camera.
Rating:
Summary: Price vs Quality .. It's all good
Review: I bought this camera as an xmas gift for my mother (she's 70) who just resently got into the Digital world with a Sony VAIO RX-650 Digital studio pc. I didn't know beans about digital cameras and it's always scary to try and get her into something new anyway, but after reading tons of info and all the reviews on this site for dozens of cameras this one kept coming up in the features for price catagory so I sprang for it. You will not be disappointed. I can't imagine getting a better deal. she was taking pictures in less then 10 minutes and at the 1600x1200 default setting they were excellent (16 for the standard 8 meg card and 64 for the 32 meg card that I got free with it). When we hooked it up to her pc it loaded so fast I wasn't sure that if it happened, but the pc reads this camera as another drive and automatically puts all the pictures into a folder for you. I can't rate the software at this time as we really haven't had time to use it, but photoshop was already installed on her pc and the quality of these pics are awesome. We printed out a few at 5x7 and I honestly can't tell the difference between those from the pc and pics that get developed from a regular camera. One of the things I worried about in this purchase was everything I'd read about low light and I was afraid they would come out dark in low light conditions. This was no problem either. The flash on this camera brings the sun into your living room and every picture we took came out very well. If your used to throw away cameras the D-380 will improve your picture taking in every area, not to mention no more developing. If your already into 35mm shooting, you'll be surprised at what very little money can do for you these days. get the AC adapter and the battery recharger and your set.
Rating:
Summary: Dandy snapshooter revisited
Review: I've had my D-380 for a while now and continue to be very pleased with it. I notice several of these reviews mention bad battery life; this has GOT to be an error. The D-380 had the best battery life in that recent Consumer's Rpts review, and I'm amazed at how long a set lasts. I charge my NiMH AA's about every two weeks and have never had them go dead--and I use the camera nearly every day. My wife shot 100+ snapshots at a party, almost all with flash, on a set of batteries that hadn't been charged in over a week and they STILL went for another week without going flat. Amazing battery life. The "degreed engineer" who found it hard to transfer pictures may have some sort of problem, or may not understand something. Moving pictures is easy enough for a grade-school kid. In Win XP and 2000, you simply plug in the camera and it appears in your system as a removable drive; the pictures are files that can be moved around like any other files. Simple as can be, and very convenient. I'm _very_ pleased with this camera overall. My only reservations: the digital zoom is not terribly good, and 2mp will just *barely* give you a good 8x10. At the price of the D-380, those are very minor drawbacks; this is a GREAT camera for casual snapshots. I like it better after using it for 2 months than I did when I got it--not many things earn that kind of praise. Great little camera at the price!
Rating:
Summary: Great For Beginners
Review: This camera is great for those just stepping into the world of digital photography. When I brought it home from the store I openned it up and prepared to spend the rest of my day reading the manual, but as soon as I put the batteries in I turned it on and began taking pictures within five minutes without ever having to look at the manual. But as easy as this camera is to operate, it has its set backs:
Pros: -Easy to use -Great value for the price it costs -Great for kids.
Cons: -No optical zoom, so if you're planning on printing your pictures don't use the digital zoom at all
-2 megapixels limits largest possible printing size to about 5" by 7". The pictures this camera takes are mainly for sharing on a computer, not for printing -The software it comes with is hard to use and doesn't even do much when you know how to use it, luckily, my CPU had other software that came with it that I can use.
Overall, I would only buy this camera if I was new to digital photography or if I needed a gift for a child.
Rating:
Summary: Decent camera for the price
Review: I tinkered around with this camera, but ended up returning it...mostly due to my own high expections. It is a decent camera for the price, but I wanted a little more. In my opinion, here are the pros and cons of the Olympus D-380 2MP digital camera... Pros:
- Great, clear picture quality when subject is within 2-3 feet of the camera
- Easy, fast upload to PC over USB.
- Remembers your quality and system settings (So long as you set the "Remember settings" option to yes) Cons:
- MEGA BATTERY DRAIN! Rechargeables are a must! I had taken approximately 40 pictures and made 3 fifteen second movies when my 4 regular AA batteries ran out.
- Picture quality is fairly blurry when subject is further than 4 feet. Optical zoom might help. Digital zoom is worthless when quality is required.
- Menu is not so user-friendly up front. Quite cryptic. Reading the manual a few times over is necessary.
- The "night" setting on the camera causes a very bad blur.
- The "red-eye reduction" setting flashes for over 1/2 second, then stops for another 1/2 second before taking the picture (doesn't sound like long, but it seems so when you're having your pic taken).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Camera but....
Review: I just purchased the Olympus D-380 2MP Digital Camera. The Camera was a snap to get going. The Quick-Start Guide was very helpful, and within a couple of minutes I was shooting pictures. The one glitch that I did find was what one other owner also encountered: the directions to download your pictures to your computer[are bad]. Did anyone else have problems hooking up their USB cable from their computer to their camera? Maybe I'm a bit slow to catch on, but the connection was fine at the hard drive end, but the end fitting into the camera will not work. Any ideas or suggetions? Otherwise the camera is very easy to use, the menu function works very nicely, and the quality of pictures is great.
Rating:
Summary: Great deal, high quality and affordable
Review: I bought this camera based on the good reviews on Amazon[.com], reputation of Olympus products, and very competitive price. So far I have not been disappointed in any part of its performance. The camera takes very good pictures with excellent color reproduction. The provided Olympus software is not very good in my opinion, and I don't use it, but the camera connects directly to my computer via USB cable and downloading pictures from the camera directly to my viewing software couldn't be easier. Overall I'm very happy with this camera and would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially if you're shopping for your first one.
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