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Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom 3.2 megapixels, a sharp 10x zoom lens, tons of features, and an affordable price! Select a topic Reference: Datasheet C-730 Photo Gallery! C-730 Sample Images --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Executive Overview 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on C-730 Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 4:Viewfinder Review First Posted: 11/25/2002

Viewfinder
The C-730 Ultra Zoom offers both a 0.44-inch electronic viewfinder and a rear panel, 1.5-inch, TFT color LCD screen. The EVF has approximately 114,000 pixels, while the rear panel screen sports 180,000. The EVF display behaves a little oddly with moving objects or during rapid panning of the camera. It doesn't look all like a refresh rate issue, but the image blurs noticeably when you move the camera, or when an object moves quickly across the field of view. When things become more or less stationary again, the display seems to sharpen. It's really quite a subtle effect, and didn't interfere with my shooting at all, but it was slightly disconcerting nonetheless. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) accommodates eyeglass wearers with a diopter correction adjustment and a comfortably high eyepoint, leaving enough room between your eye and the finder for most eyeglass lenses to fit in, although I did notice a little vignetting around the edges while wearing my glasses. The tiny display is identical to that of the larger LCD monitor, complete with menus and exposure information. The EVF remains active at all times, which would usually result in rather short battery life, but the C-730 seemed to do surprisingly well in that area.

My regular readers will already know that I'm no fan of electronic viewfinders. They seem to be a necessary evil with long-zoom cameras, as it'd be prohibitively expensive and bulky to include an optical viewfinder with an 10x zoom to match the lens. EVFs do have the dual advantages of providing true "through the lens" (TTL) viewing, as well as a the same information display as on rear-panel LCDs, but to my mind the negatives usually outweigh the positives. My biggest objection to them is that they are generally useless for low light shooting, but the EVF on the C-730 Ultra Zoom seemed to be much better than most in this respect. The display would get rather dark while the camera's autofocus was working, but at other times seemed quite capable of providing a usable display, even under very dark conditions. (Down to a level corresponding to a 1 second exposure at ISO 400, dark indeed.)

The C-730's LCD monitor is controlled by the Display button located just off its lower right corner. Pressing this button simply turns the main LCD display on or off, not affecting the information overlay or the EVF display. A detailed information readout on both monitors highlights a number of exposure settings, including the currently selected f/stop, shutter speed, and exposure compensation adjustments across the top of the screen. (Note though, that specific exposure parameters are not displayed in any of the "scene" modes.) In Aperture and Shutter Priority modes, the chosen aperture or shutter speed appears as a constant, while the second, automatically determined exposure value updates continuously to respond to changes in subject or lighting. The Manual mode displays both of the selected f/stop and shutter speed values, while the right-hand set of numbers reports the amount by which the camera thinks the image will be under- or overexposed, up to +/- 3 EV units. (When you're more than three EV over or under, these unbers turn stop at the 3EV value and red.) In my testing, I found the viewfinder display to be very accurate, showing a little over 99 percent of the final image area, an excellent performance.

When using the LCD monitor to review captured images, you can zoom in up to 4x on displayed images and then scroll around the enlarged image using the arrow buttons. This is extremely handy for checking focus, small details, or precise framing. There's also an Index display option, which shows either four, nine, or 16 thumbnail-sized images at a time. A very handy "quick view" function lets you check the last picture taken in Record mode by pressing the Display button twice in quick succession. The image will remain displayed on the LCD until you revert back to Record mode by pressing the Display button again, or by half-pressing the Shutter button.

Like some other Olympus digicams, the C-730 also offers the ability to resize or crop your images post-exposure. This is very handy, as it's almost always possible to improve your photos by cropping (trimming) trimming them a little. On the C-730, a cropping menu option lets you trim away as much as 30% or so of the image area, and even change the composition from horizontal to vertical, or vice versa. In cropping mode, a bold green outline indicates the current crop area, and the zoom toggle zooms the crop in or out, while the four arrow keys let you move it around the image. Once you've got the crop adjusted to your liking, the camera will save a new image onto the card, with just the cropped area in it. (Your original photo is left undisturbed.) Likewise, using another menu option, you can resize previously-shot photos, to create smaller versions more suitable for emailing.