Full(!) Review posted for Olympus C-4000 Zoom
By
Dave Etchells
(Tuesday, August 27, 2002 - 09:00 EDT)
This was probably the most time I've ever spent on the review of a sub-$500 digicam, but I felt that the camera itself more than justified it: IMHO, Olympus' new four-megapixel C-4000 Zoom delivers more features and value for the price than pretty much anything else on the market, at least at this particular point in time.
While you can find cameras that equal or exceed its performance at higher prices, I don't think there's anything out there right now that can touch it at its $499 MSRP. It delivers excellent color and resolution, has a broad range of "enthusiast" features (including the external flash sync socket that was missing from Oly's recent C-3020 model), and does very well in low light and macro shooting. Best of all, it has what I refer to as "tweak" adjustments for contrast, saturation, color cast and sharpness that cover a useful range in very fine steps. The result is that you can customize the camera's response to match your personal preferences to an extent found in few other cameras on the market. (Offhand, I'd say the Minolta Dimage 7i is the only other model that offers a similar range of control, and that's a considerably more expensive model.)
I'd like to see less chromatic aberration from the lens, and a more accurate optical viewfinder, but the overall package is really an exceptional value I'm pretty confident in predicting that this model is going to be a big success for Olympus. Check it out!
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