Rating: Summary: An excellant digital camera. Easy to use and economical. Review: I just want to say that this camera is the greatest buy. I've been trying to wear these rechargeable batteries that come with it down for 12 hours. I get 122 pics on Standard mode. It does 2x photos and 3x viewing. Really great buy. Totally satisfied. Between the software and the camera, Pictures are a breeze. And the price is right. Does everything and more than cameras I've experienced at three times the cost.
Rating: Summary: I'm upgrading my rating Review: I posted a review of this camera a few weeks ago, shortly after purchasing it. I gave it 4 stars, mainly because the manual wasn't well written. However, that still being the case, I must say that this camera deserves 5 stars! It takes amazingly clear, bright pictures. The video display LCD is bright. And it seemed to take forever for the rechargable batteries to run down! I highly recommend this camera! If it had an optical zoom, it would be perfect. However, with this camera, you get more than you pay for!
Rating: Summary: The D340R is a great camera! Review: So many people have written about the technical part of this wonderful camera. I agree with many of them. You won't feel bad about spending your $$$. I've shopped around and I've made my decison with confidence. (Yes, you can find this item for less at other e-stores, but I trust Amazon, they deliver promptly and their Customer Service is great!) Some customers have said that this camera eats batteries like crazy. It's only true when you use the LCD monitor to TAKE pictures. If you use it for reviewing (and deleting) the pictures you have taken, it lasts a long, long time. I have purchased my camera before Thanksgiving. It's December 12, and after taking hundreds of pictures (most using flash), I am STILL using the batteries it came with! Lemme tell ya a little secret, if you do take pictures using the LCD monitor, and you get the message that the battery is low, turn off the camera, let it rest for a little while and turn it back on again. The battery life will show full again! No need to change the batteries until it tells you it's dead and you have been taking pictures using the viewfinder. Now, it is not a bad idea to get yourself some rechargeable NiMH batteries. I've seen many good comments about the brand MAHA. Also, I have seen great reviews on MAHA's charger model MH-C204F. Some people have mentioned them here. But I didn't know where to purchase them from. So here you go. For more info on the MAHA products, go to Maha-comm website. And to purchase these two products, check out Thomas-distributing's website (sorry I can't include the exact web addresses according to the reviews guidelines, but it isn't hard to figure out). For around $50 I got the charger and 8 NiMH batteries. Now you can go on the road and not worry about your batteries dying or where to purchase them. It's a lot of fun to have a digital camera and take hundreds and hundreds of pictures knowing you don't have to pay for developement or wait to finally see your pictures. Just download them and enjoy or use the video cable to see your photos on your TV. Or just use the LCD monitor! :) -- From a happy Olympus/Amazon customer. :)
Rating: Summary: Best Product for the Price Review: Before I bought this camera, I never took pictures: the marginal cost of taking any given shot was too high, given the film purchase and developing. With a digital camera, this cost drops to ZERO - I can take all the pictures I want! In that respect, it's absolutely worth the $ that you'll spend on the camera, a case, NiMH batteries, and a charger. Contrary to many reviews, the camera DOES NOT eat batteries too quickly; I used it heavily for days before the meter showed any drain. The desirable missing feature is an optical zoom, but you can't expect one at this price. (Those of you not living on a college student's budget may want to post the extra $, though!) Pictures are amazingly clear and colorful, and download time is nothing to complain about. A great deal - GO BUY THIS CAMERA!
Rating: Summary: Not for an iMac Review: The camera itself works great,the product discription says ok for PC/MAC,but you have to wait until you read page 148 of the manual to find out that it's not setup for an iMac.Be prepared to spend a lot more money for attachments if your using the iMac.
Rating: Summary: A nifty little camera Review: This is my first digital camera, and I am quite impressed so far. It is reasonably easy to use, and the picture quality is more than adequate for my purposes. Standard quality mode is OK if you don't enlarge the photo too much, and if you aren't trying to capture fine details or textures. HQ and SHQ offer significant improvements in image quality. It is annoying that the AC adapter is not included and must be purchased separately. If you minimize your use of the LCD display and use a separate device to download pictures, you can probably get by without the AC adaptor. Overall, I am very satisfied with the camera so far and am looking forward to taking LOTS of pictures without having to pay and wait for film and processing.
Rating: Summary: Still improving a great product Review: I just bought this camera based on the reviews here. I cant add much to the reviews above (The image quality and features on this thing are top notch) but I did want to let prospective buyers know that Olympus is now offering the camera with 4 NiMH batteries and a quick charger included. Nice to know the company takes consumer feedback seriously!
Rating: Summary: Great features, great price Review: The D340R does a very nice job for the money. It would be nice if the camera had more of a zoom feature, but that's probably its only shortcoming.Best results come with the HQ mode. You can save up to 36 pix on 8MB card in the HQ mode. The SHQ mode provides less JPG compression and a truer image, but the tradeoff is that you can only save 18 images on an 8 MB card. I haven't noticed any real improvement with the SHQ mode and -- in my opinion -- the pictures actually look more pixelated in the SHQ than in the HQ. The JPG compression of the HQ mode smooths the gradients a bit more, it seems. So HQ mode it is for me on almost every shot. The LQ mode is only 640x480, and the image quality deteriorates rapidly if you try to do any zooming or cropping on LQ pictures. I print my photos on an Epson Stylus Photo 750 printer. In most cases, the output looks to the eye to be genuine photo quality. As mentioned above, if you try to do blow up pictures too much -- especially in LQ mode -- the image quality deteriorates visibly. Battery life has not been a problem for me, but I use the LCD display as little as possible. I only use it to review pictures already taken, not to frame or compose shots. I use the viewfinder to compose. You get a little more in the picture than what you actually see in the viewfinder, so it's not likely that you'll cut someone's head off in the picture. I download pictures using the serial cable (included). Download is rather slow, and it takes several minutes to dump an entire full camera's worth into the computer. I haven't figured out if there's a way to select just a few thumbnails off the camera and not download the whole set of thumbnails. Once you have the thumnails downloaded, though, you can select only those you want to download for real. The manual is straightforward and easily understandible, and all the camera controls make sense once you're up on them. You probably would have a tough time figuring them out without consulting the manual, though. I hope this is helpful. Overall, I'm very pleased with this little camera.
Rating: Summary: Top Notch Digital Photography for a Bargain Price Review: The Olympus D-340R is, in my opinion, the best value digital camera available right now. The picture quality is impressive---I usually can't tell the difference between the pictures it takes and pictures taken with a $340 SLR that I have scanned in. Also, the camera is fairly lightweight and compact and easy to use, like a good point and shoot camera should be. Since I bought my Olympus, I have not taken 1 non-digital photograph. I enjoy the simplicity of the camera and the freedom from developing and film costs (some $10/roll). Overall, the camera is worth the investment and it is an excellent camera for someone new to digital photography.
Rating: Summary: A definite winner- Buy this camera! Review: After reading every review we could find, we ventured for the first time into the digital photographic world purchasing the Olympus 340-R digital camera. We were definitely not disappointed. After just a few days the camera accompanied us to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Seoul, S. Korea, while we nervously left our Canon SLR at home. The camera performed marvelously. We found the optional 16MB flash memory card more than adequate for our needs, as we easily downloaded photos each day into our laptop. We were amazed at the quality of photos even in low light settings. We took shots at our conference including a multimedia presentation where surprisingly the projected image on the screen was readable! While staying in the countryside in a traditional Mongolian "ger" (tent), we shot an incredible photo of the predawn sky-- even the morning stars are clearly distinguishable! Arriving home we were completely satisfied with the photos shot at the low resolution setting when printed out on our HP Deskjet 895 using an Epson photographic paper. I doubt that most people would be able to tell the difference between the prints and a standard developed snapshot. The enclosed Olympus and Adobe software is easy to use and functional for most home use. You will absolutely love the Quickstitch utility that simply creates oversized and panorama shots! One of the only weaknesses we found a little frustrating was the variance between the optical viewfinder and the digital one. If you frame... say, a head and shoulders shot in the optical viewfinder, you will discover that digitally the camera sees a much broader area. Olympus should do a little better job calibrating the two viewfinders. Apart from that, you will want to invest in the NiMH charger and at least 8 batteries-- shop around for the best price. Also, picking up a 3.5 inch floppy adapter for the flash memory card will be a big time saver. You simply pull out the flash memory card, slip it into the adapter, and then slide the floppy into any computer. You'll save time and frustration over having cords laying all around your table, plus a significant download time. One last item-- Do you think a 16MB memory card will be too small for your needs? Olympus, through their website, is offering an inexpensive upgrade through the end of December that will allow the camera to use the new 32MB memory cards.
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