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Olympus Camedia  C-3020 3MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

Olympus Camedia C-3020 3MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

List Price: $599.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Camera for Everyone!
Review: I researched for quite a while before selecting this camera and have been extremely pleased by its performance and options.
The camera works perfectly as a "point and Shoot" or allows for manual overide for many settings. A good place to see technical specs is at .... I highly recommend that you also purchase the 128MB memory card that allows up to 1330 JPEG images at a 640 x 480 resolution and the Olympus CLA-1 41mm - 43mm lens tube adapter and an additional step up ring to accomodate a protective UV filter (otherwise the lens at full telephoto will bump into the filter) and a larger lens cap. The USB feature makes downloading the pictures a cinch. If you can afford it, consider moving up (in price)to the discontinued model 3000 (I think) that includes a built in microphone that allows up to 4 sec of audio with each picture! Its the only feature I believe that would make this camera better.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nice Camera
Review: The only problem I see with this camera is the lens cap.If you don't take the cap off before turning the camera on the motor for the zoom lens grinds until you take it off.Otherwise I am very happy with the camera.Great feel when holding it, easy features and takes a great picture.Overall a very nice camera, I would reccommend it for sure.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too many flaws to recommend
Review: I initially bought this camera, but after a few days of using it, while I was happy with the photos it produces, I could not get past all the things about it that i did not like.

- The lack of audio on movies. How much would a microphone have cost Olympus to put in?? Seems sort of a waste to even have the movie feature at all without sound.

- The motor, I've read it before, and must agree, it sounds like each time the lens comes whirring out of it's shell, it will be the last time. God awful sound. Cannot get away from the feeling that they REALLY cut some corners making this camera

- ....

- Shape and size. This camera is too large in odd ways. It is small and large all at once. Hard to explain, but that is how it felt. It will not fit in a jacket pocket, forget about a shirt pocket or pants pocket. The shape is awkward. While I was holding it, I kept having the feeling like I would drop it if I did not pay attention to the fact that I was holding it.

- Last but not least. The batteries! I initially thought, well with AA support, I'll never be without batteries as long as I can find a corner store in my hour of need. What a mistake. Within the first 2 days I went through 3 sets of 4 batteries. I really did not think this through. In retrospect, to me given the availability of lithium battery technology, it would be like buying a laptop computer that used D alkalin batteries for power. People would laugh at the idea. They should too when it comes to alkalin and Digital Cameras

I ended up returning this camera and moving up a bit to a better camera and am SO much happier. I bought a Canon S30 and it fulfilled ALL the things I found lacking in the Olympus 3020. Given that it came with a rechargable lithium battery and charger, if I had kept the Olympus and bought rechargable AA batteries and charger, I would have only spent around 50 more dollars.

My last comment in the hopes that some Olympus employee will actually read this and take some action is this. I mainly bought this camera because I had an Olympus 35MM film camera and loved it (still do!). It lacked all the things that I had come to expect with my film camera. Why they could not have used the same camera shell is beyond me. They do on their lower end models. I guess that square, awkward shape is a "feature??"

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointing camera
Review: I was looking for a good mid range digital camera and the Olympus 3020z seemed like a good choice. I must say I made a mistake in purchasing this camera. It does take excellent pictures especially in good lighting conditions. It also feels good in your hands when using it. This camera is not worth the money though.
First of all it has less features than the 3000z which it is supposed to replace. It cannot be connected to a TV to view the photos, It has no sound capability, and it has no external flash connector to mention a few. The battery life is awful and the motor in the zoom lens sounds like it is going to break the gears any minute.
There are other things about this camera that I don't like but I feel the most important thing is that it costs the same as the 3000z and has less features. I think I am going to get the 3040z because for not much more in price it has a better lens and more features.
The bottom line is don't waste your money on this new camera. For just a little bit more you can get a 3040z with a lot more in the way of useful features. Why buy a digital camera that has no video out jack and has movie mode with no sound. It is beyond me why Olympus would have removed these features and more from their 3000z 3.3 megapixel camera and replaced it with this one at the same price. Get a 3040z if you are going to get an Olympus 3.3 megapixel camera. It is a much beter camera for the money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Camera
Review: Great camera, extremly nice pictures, very easy hook up to my computer via USB... prints up to 8 X 10 come out sharp.
Conrols are easy to use and the zoom is excellent

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Little gem of a digicam
Review: This is my second digicam..the first was an excellent 1.3 megapixel.However, I wanted to be able to do more "stuff" and enlarge pics up to at least 8x10..so I read a lot of reviews and input from the consumers here, and gave it a shot. I am so glad I did. This is an excellent, easy to use, good-looking,feels-good-in-the-hand camera,and I couldn't be happier. The software installed quickly to my new XP OS computer, and I was sending out photos over the internet in a few minutes. I did buy the battery charger, however, because no matter what camera I am using, I do not like to go through batteries and worry about disposing of them properly.
I am using a fairly inexpensive printer, with glossy photo paper, and the pics are superb! I haven't gone beyond 8x10 yet, but from the looks of it, larger prints shouldn't be too much trouble.
There are so many features and capabilities with this camera..too many to list.
I have used Olympus 35mm film cameras for years, and loved them all. And I love this new digicam already. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed with this camera.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This is good Camera
Review: I have bought the camera about 2 weeks ago. I have been using it several times. I also bought rechargable battery and 128M smart media card. Personally, I did not find it difficult to learn. I am doing scientific work, use different scientic digital cameras that hook to the microscopes. That could be the reason. The pictures look very good. The manual is not difficult to understand, although it is brief if you don't have good knowledge about photography. There is a more detailed manual (pdf file) on the software CD . The camedia software included is only useful to recognise camera as a hard drive when connected to a computer with USB cable. I use Mac. When I tred to open flies it crushed the computer. However, Adobe photoshop element is also included that should solved the problem. Since I have adobe photoshop on the computer, so I did not load photoshop element.

I have used the camera almost exclusively in Manual mode. The reason I like to use manual mode is that at least 30% of chance the picture exposure is kind of off if not way off when using the automatic mode (This applies to all point shoot cameras). The situation gets worse when light condition is complicated. When use manual mode, If the the exposure is off, just adjust the shutter speed or aperture to get correct exposure. The good thing about digital camera is you can take several shots with different exposure and pick the one you like and delete others. You can see the picture right after you taken it. You can adjust exposure if the picture is not good. After several shots to get used to the camera, I find it is not difficult to operate within manual mode. It is quite fast. I would recommed people to learn to use the manual mode. It give you the chance to optimize your photos and you pay for this feature. The camera without manual mode are cheaper.

I also find there is another way to deal with incorrect exposure with automatic mode. If go through manual, you can select a setting, allows you to take 3 picture if you hold the button down for a while. One is the exposure you normally get from automatic mode. The other two are one under-exposure and one over-exposure of automatic exposure. The level of under and over-exposure can also be set. It is a nice feature for people do not want to go through manual mode. However, changing under or over-exposure levels involves too many steps. To me, it is faster to change exposure condition within manual mode. The pictures I have taken are generally very nice, sharp with good color balance. The only reason I give it 4 star is that this is my first personal digital camera and I don't know other cameras at simailar price range work compare to this one. But I would recommmend this camera to other people.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Olympus has a winner!
Review: This is our first digital camera and I must say that we love this thing! I read all the reviews of all comparable cameras and decided on this baby. I'm well aware of the TV Out and sound functions being removed since the C-3000 Zoom. These are not important to most people and will not be missed. If you want to watch tv and have little movies with sound, get a camcorder. The optics are great and the lcd has great resolution as well.

Now onto the picture quality. The photos at high resolution are absolutely stunning. Make sure to take the lens cap off before turning on or it will cause the lens motor to grind. This is the only mechanical fault of this camera. Need to get NiMH rechargeable batteries and a charger. You'll also need to upgrade the Smartmedia card for big photo shoots. You can get about 24 pics at high res on the included 16 MB card. USB connectivity is plug and play. Your camera shows as a hard drive in Explorer and file transfer is blazing!

The included Adobe Photoshop Elements is $99 value, great program for picture editing. Included paper manual is lame, but the manual on the CD-ROM is great.

A great camera at a great price. Everything works great out of the box with no immediate need for additional accessories. Grab some batteries, charger, bigger Smartmedia card and a bag and your ready for anything the analog world throws at your Olympus C-3020 Zoom digital camera!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good camera
Review: I've enjoyed the camera quite a bit, it's a lot more then a begginer point and shoot camera. It offers all manual modes also you can control either the apreture and the exposure will be automatically calculated or you can control the shutter and the apreture will be automatically calculated, or you can go all manual where you will your self set everything up shutter/apreture and even manual focus if so desired!

It's a bit complex to figure it out at first but it's well worth it. The picture quality i've recived from this camera is excellent.

In addition the 40 second movie mode is also quite a bit of fun.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great middle-of-the-road digital camera
Review: Our first digital camera was an early Ricoh RCD-2E (about 1 pixel?). Was a great learning camera, but photos could only be made up to 4 X 6. This 3.3 megapixel camera will do a great job on enlargements up to 8 X 10. Only complaint I have with it is that you must read the manual to know how to operate it--menu is not easy to understand on your own. Also, no holder for lens cap--could easily be lost. This is easily remidied, but a pain, nonetheless. We have used the lithium batteries and use the camera very frequently and after seven months, batteries are still showing full charge--with older camera using 4-AA's, we were always changing batteries. Have not even tried using the movie portion of the camera--have a digital camcorder for that purpose and understand that this camera will not take very long movies, but does an excellent job with still photographs.

Lightweight, buttons are large enough that you do not need super nimble fingers to change settings on it. Able to erase single pictures or all of card easily. Uses smart card which we put right into the slot on our HP Photosmart printer, so no need to download onto computer if we do not wish to do so. However, can download to computer via direct connection or with use of SanDisk adapter--both are quite easy to learn to use. Must have smart disk to take photos, whereas with our older model, there was possibility to take up to 10 photos on internal memory of camera. Smart cards are easy to insert and change, tho, so no problem.

If you have the money, this would be an excellent camera to learn to do digital on, and is an excellent camera to continue using throughout.


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