Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Mid Price Camera
Review: My work group tested many digital cameras over the last few years. We looked at resolution, image distortion, color saturation and accuracy and evaluated zoom lenses at the extremes of their zoom range. In general, the Olympus cameras performed better than the others tested, including Canon, Nikon and Kodak. Manufacturers can advertise how many megapixels their cameras have, but the real test is to take a resolution test image, then enlarge it to 800% and print it on a high quality printer. Our results showed that Olympus cameras performed very well "per pixel". Also, the Olympus cameras gave excellent results at the widest angle of zoom, an area where many consumer cameras fall short. Apparently, the optics used are superior, resulting in lower barrel distortion.The image size of 4mb is more than adequate to produce sharp 8.5 x 11 prints. With an image this large, one can zoom in and enlarge 1/4 of the image to 4x6" and still get a very sharp print. The ability to use AA batteries is a plus. Excellent value in a mid-priced camera.
Rating: 
Summary: Comparison of C4040 with Kodak DC260, my previous camera
Review: My expectations when investing in a new digital camera were, higher resolution, faster shooting, manual control on aperture/shutter and finally selling the old one before it gets completely obsolete. I reached my expectations. 4040 gives the best price-performance point. But there are some remarks. These are the conclusions of my investigations upon the harsh critisizm that I got from my wife who is absolutely unsatisfied with her photos. (Most of the photo hobbyists know how wives react on such...investments): Kodak DC260 is superior with portrait and photos up to 4-5 meters. I could not obtain same results in portraits taken by my 4040. Colors are reddish and human skin makes this visible. Brown furniture becomes red, and yellows become orange. I could not compensate this with white-balance adjustments of the camera.
Flash photography of portraits are disappointing. Skin colors become unnatural and you feel that all flash light directed on the noses. It seems that light is not distributed uniformly. This does not happen with Kodak. There is a dimensional distortion on photos taken within the range of 1-1.5 meters, this becomes obvious on portraits again.This may be due to the focal lenght of the objective or the effect of flash light distribution. Nose or neck or whatever part is nearer to the camera, becomes slightly magnified. Big and bright noses are the common reason for the instant deletion of the frames. Above mentioned color and dimensional distortions do not exist or are not disturbing on outdoor photography. Be aware that you can not put date or text on your photos, which was a useful feature on DC260. And the last bad point to 4040 is the Macro. Although I do not need a closer shot, 20 cm should not be called as Macro, my opinion. Rest is all positive with 4040. Much less power consumption, longer battery life(more than twice of DC260), much more manual control using the menu, lighter and smaller body, video feature and many more. What I noticed is, pixel count above 2 Mbit is unnecessary for the ones like me, if you do not intend to print posters, do not spend your dollars on extra pixels. A less pixel count model with same functional features would fit much better. I set default pixel count to 1600x1200 which makes my camera equivalent to a 2 Mpix unit. So, I feel that I have [spent more than I needed too].
Rating:
Summary: Great pictures, easily
Review: I bought this camera for my wife, since she didn't get along with my Olympus C2500L much at all. She would shoot thirty pictures and about ten would be worth printing. With the C4040z she has a success rate of 90% or better. The f1.8 lens makes the shot requirements so forgiving that it seems difficult to take a bad picture. I did a test shoot with and without flash, and the outcome was amazing. The only difference was the relative hue factors. I showed them to my wife and she couldn't tell the difference. The menus between the two cameras are very different, but have a family thread, so I figured it out in short order. We have medium large hands, so this camera fit out hands very well and is comfortable to use, which was a huge consideration, for us. My only complaint is the lens cap. It's on a lanyard and operates fine, but if the camera is turned on before the cap is removed, it will complain loudly. We must remember to "remove the cap first", which is not a factor on the C2500L, being an SLR. Buying online will save a bundle of money and if you choose your vendor wisely, you can have the great experience I had.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Camera!
Review: This is a really great camera. I have owned two other digital cameras and the picture quality on this camera goes way beyond what I had seen before. It goes through bateries pretty quickly, but this is not a big deal if you use the camera without the viewer on. It also helps having re-chargeable batteries. I purchased a 128MB Smart Media Card and I can shoot approximately 130 pictures in high resolution mode. Pretty amazing!
Rating:
Summary: Another great Camedia, but...
Review: shouldn't they have brought out a better than 3x optical zoom on this near-professional model? I use my Camedias (700 & 2100) for mostly sports photography (though the 700 is a great all-purpose digicam), and after having had 10x optical zooms for a while, I just can't imagine going back to 3x and losing so many potentially great shots. I believe travelers would find the same missed opportunities. In every other respect, the 4040 is a great camera, with excellent 4 megapixel resolution (which would easily allow 11" x 14" enlargements without loss of clarity), great optics, a choice of power cells (including handy AA disposables when needed) and a good quick-time movie with sound feature. Of course, the camera needs a much bigger memory card to be truly useful, but these have recently gotten as inexpensive as fifty cents per meg, so adding a 128 or even 256 meg card is not so unreasonable. By the way, reliability has been rock-solid with these Camedias, and Olympus service, if needed, is quite good.
Rating:
Summary: EASY Downloads ! - Great Camera !
Review: Firstly I'd just like to say that I'm writing this in response to the reviewer who couldn't download his photos. It really is easy.
1. Attach your USB Flashreader
2. Switch on your computer and open say Explorer
3. Choose the USB drive
4. Select all photos and drag to hard-drive destination
Finished ! BTW only delete from the Smartmedia using the in-camera delete function.
I actually use a 3040 (and the 4040 gives you an another 1 million pixels per shot) for underwater photography (the F1.8 lense is a dream for low light level photography) and print out multiple photos on 8" x 10" - superb ! The 75 seconds movie clips are tremendous fun too, but it's the functionality and soooooo easy learning curve that makes this camera worth every penny. Read the reviews in the digital camera magazines (and their sites) for further endorsements. Have fun !
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera!
Review: I started with the C-2000, and now years later, have finally upgraded to the C-4040. I highly recommend it. They fixed everything that i didn't like about the first camera. Drawbacks? Takes too long to take a picture (the camera takes the picture nearly two seconds after you pushed the button) so, in action shots, you miss them often. I'm still trying to figure out a way to configure it to take pix immediately.
Rating:
Summary: Great camera for advanced novice
Review: This is an outstanding camera. There is little you cannot do with it, from simple point and shoot to fully manual operation. With 128mb memory cards going for about $55 on the net, get several so that you can play with movie mode. One 128mb card will hold 170 pictures at standard resolution, and over 1300 at lower resolution, so to reviewer who dissed the olympus for its use of media, I have a question: How many pictures do you take in a day? Check out other review sites and you will find that this is one of the most highly respectd and best reviewed series (3000, 3030, 3040, 4000, 4020, 4040)of cameras ever produced. Professionals and amatures alike are consistant in their praise.
Rating: 
Summary: unfriendly for windows 98
Review: I bought the Camedia 4040zoom and was very excited about the features. The big problem was downloading the photos onto the computer. I read the manual - not enough information. I called customer service and was on hold for 47 minutes - no kidding! The rep was very helpful but had a hard time with this operation. We finally were successful in downloading the photos, but I lost them before I could save it and couldn't get it back. I went onto the on-line support and kept getting into a loop. Not successful. I am returning the camera and buying a Nikon that I borrowed from a friend and had no problem downloading the pictures.
Rating: 
Summary: Smart Media is a poor choice
Review: Nice camera. It'd be on my list if it only used Compact Flash memory cards. Smart Media is much smaller in capacity (128mb vs over 1000mb). This is a very important consideration when looking at any camera which produces such large image files. Smart Media isn't very smart. Since unlike Compact Flash it has no onboard controller. (meaning fatal error happen much more often). Transfer speed is much slower. How long do you wish to wait between shots? The slower the memory card, the longer the wait. And including a measly 16mb memory stick is a JOKE on a 4 megapixel camera. It can hold 2-3 raw images. Also in a camera costing this much, rechargable batteries and a charger should be standard (and for many other cameras it is).
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