Rating: 
Summary: Great First Digital Camera
Review: As this was my first foray into digital photography, I was expecting a difficult to learning experience. But no, I am getting spectaular results and was able to figure out most things just by the menus on the camera.-- not entirly satified with the digital zoom yet. But still I have some outstanding photos for my early results.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to operate
Review: Great digital camera for the price. Easy to use and photos are exceptional. Fun, fast and user friendly!
Rating: 
Summary: Just terrible
Review: The design of the the D490 is just great. Easy to operate, and good results. The problem is the Camedia software. I tried downloading off the CD-rom on two different machines. When trying to open the software it announces a fatal error and crashes. Repeated calls to Olympus support were never answered. In the end I just rang sales and got straight through (strange, eh?). They couldn't supply a patch, so I spent another $25 buying the latest version of the software. The camera also doesn't seem to work with Windows XP, which is supposed to pick up cameras and similar devices automatically.I've owned Olympus cameras for 25 years, and frankly I'm disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Great photos from an easy to use camera
Review: The Olympus D-490 offers a great camera to take wonderful digital photos. If the intended purpose is digital display of the photos this is a wonderful camera. The down side is you will have to provide your own rechargable batteries and get an external USB digital media reader. These two additional items will help your enjoyment and use of the camera.
Rating:
Summary: Very impressed
Review: I bought the D-490 in December 2000 and am very impressed with the camera so far. I'm always amazed at the clearity and sharpness of the photos I take. When I print them out, they look like regular 35mm photos, as long as I don't blow them up too big. This is my first digital camera, and I love being able to email photos so easily to friends and family. They have told me how remarkably clear the photos I send them are. In fact, one friend was so impressed, he bought a D-490 too. Batteries last a long time in this camera which is nice, some cameras can really eat up the batteries, but this one suprises me. I must take like a hundred photos in between battery changes. The only down side to this camera is that sometimes the photos are a little dark, but this is easily remedied with some photo enhancing software. I may be able to change the exposure setting on the camera to lighten it up a bit, but haven't played with that yet. The downloading hardware that comes with the camera is way to slow, so just go buy a USB reader and you'll be set.
Rating:
Summary: Value, Compactness and Picture Quality
Review: I purchased this camera two months ago and have taken approximately 400 pictures to date with it. The first digital camera I had was a Polaroid PDC 640. The reason I first looked at the Olympus D-490Z is it also used the same Smartmedia cards. Smartmedia cards are credit card thin, they are cheaper than compactflash, and I was already familiar with them. The main reason why I wanted a new digital camera was zoom capabilities which my former camera did not have.
The highlights of this camera are: 2.1 Megapixel, autofocus 3X optical zoom, 2.5X digital zoom, 6 mode flash, Quicktime movie mode, it's compact size, color LCD TFT display, and Smartmedia compatibility. The lowest picture quality is 640 by 480 and the highest is 1024 by 768. There is also a panoramic picture mode. This feature assists you in stitching images together. But, if you want to utilize this mode you have to use Olympus brand Smartmedia cards.
This is a menu driven camera with two discre!et menus. All camera options such as exposure, simulated film speed, resolution, and flash modes can be operated through these menus. These options also give this digital camera the feel of a filbm camera.
The flash that is mounted on the body of the camera is slightly confusing to use. This is because you have to manually pop-up the flash before the camera can choose to use it when taking the picture. If you do not manually pop-up the flash, the camera cannot use it when photographing.
What I found particularly unusual about this camera was that when using the zoom feature the lens moves inside of a housing. This means that you can mount an additional lens onto the outside of it. I have purchased an additional lens which allows me to do extreme close ups. The camera has a feature to do "macro" shots, but this lens allows me to get even closer and take pictures of matchbox cars, insects, and flowers.
I was considering other cameras in the Olympus D-400 !series, however this was the only one with the ability to do Quicktime movies lasting up to 15 seconds in high quality mode. I didn't think I would use this feature because there is another mode that the camera has called sequential shooting. But, for some moving objects that I tried to capture with my camera, I was unsuccessful using sequential shooting. The length between captures is too large for fast moving objects. Using this "movie" mode makes it easier and quicker. The only negative about movie mode is that the flash does not work in this mode. This camera gives you the greatest ability to change parameters, but continues to be a fully automatic point and shoot camera.
Since I have purchased this camera, Olympus has come out with a D-500 series camera, which has a higher digital zoom, but the camera itself appeared to be made of cheaper materials. I strongly suggest reviewing the manual that comes with this camera as you really can't operate the camera sucessful!ly without reading it. As for a suggestion for the other reviewers, I would recommend using some sort of adapter for transferring pictures to your computer. I use a 3 1/2" disc adapter that lets me avoid using the supplied software.
Rating:
Summary: simply the best
Review: I was able to purchase this camera ... after rebates. A true bargain indeed for all the wonderful features and quality. Simply stated.... this piece of equipment is SUPER!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Camera
Review: I bought my Olympus D490Zoom a few moths ago to replace my broken D220L (a point and shoot olympus digital camera) and it blew me away! Finally I was able to zoom in on things with optical zoom and get a bit closer with the digital zoom. Picture quality is excellent. The fact that it has a serial port adapter rather than the USB is a big plus, since not all of us have USB. My only complaint is the camedia software that came with it. maybe it acts a bit different on the PC, but on the mac its a bit slow and not as good as the software that came with my previous camera. Also it didn't come with rechargable batteries and a recharger like my other one did (which wasn't a big issue) and it came with one 8MB card with no sort of case. The camera itself is one of the best cameras, film or digital that I have put my hands on.
Rating:
Summary: My First Digital Camera
Review: I bought this camera (Olympus D-490z) a few months ago and love it. After taking pictures with a normal camera (Canon SLR AE-1), I wanted a digital camera to releive the frustration of photo labs losing my film. Also, it's easy to take a picture, review it, delete it, and retake. With normal cameras(film), you take a picture and hope you got the right shot after it's developed. There's also a feature to take sequenced shots to display action which I use all the time. This camera has a problem with taking quick pictures. I'm trying to use it to take action pictures of soccer and fencing. Once you push the button to take the picture, it takes a second to capture the image. Just be warned that it's hard to take action shots with this camera and all digial cameras. Also, after a few months of camera use, this camera stopped turning on. I search Amazon's site for a phone number to call, but only found email addresses. Finally, I sent an email explaining my broken camera and they sent me a number to call. After talking to their customer support, they sent me a new camera to replace my broken one without a hassle. Satisfied Customer, Tom
Rating:
Summary: Spellbindingly good
Review: I guess the title says it all. After going through lots of reviews, spending endless nights at the comparometer at the.. website.. poring over the differences in the camera images I finally got fed up. Since my Olympus film camera has been serving me wonderfully well, I on a hunch decided to go for the D 490 Zoom though the Kodak Dc 4800 was on my list right till the moment I clicked the submit button. And I am really glad that I bought this camera. Extremely intuitive interface, very very easy to setup, handles like a film camera and excellent 2.11 megapixel images at an extremely affordable price. This camera is ideal for almost everyone except perhaps professionals wanting to shoot NASCAR races. The indoor photographs are very detailed, with brilliant colors. Flash works extremely well. Outdooe photographs are equally brilliant. You can change the settings to make the camera behave like ISO 100 , 200 or 400. My roomie has a Kodak Dc 280 and we have been using that camera for about six months now. And D490 beats..[around]..that camera. You have to give this to Olympus that these people do not spend a lot of money on advertising etc. but when it comes to optics they know there stuff and do not cut corners. I clicked a lot of photographs in high quality mode (1600 * 1200 around 350 K for a jpeg image) and low quality (640 * 480 around 60 K for a jpeg image) and image quality was very good in both the cases. You might want to go for D460 if you are a bit tight on budget but if you are willing to shell out [the] bucks or so then D 490 is the way to go really. Pros: 1. Brilliant Pictures (that is what is paramount in any camera) 2. Very intuitive interface. 3. Light weight and quite portable. 4. Brilliant Flash 5. Motion picture capability for 2 minutes Cons: 1. Serial transfer to computer. Slow. Though Olympus was offering free USB reader by mail until recently and for which I qualified. 2. Camedia software no great shakes. 3. No battery charger or AC Adapeter supplied with the camera. 4. Only 8 MB memory card.
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