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Olympus Camedia D-40 Zoom

Super-compact 4 megapixel model takes great pictures!

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Page 10:Image Storage & Interface

Review First Posted: 10/8/2001

Image Storage and Interface
The D-40 Zoom stores images to the provided 16MB SmartMedia card (additional cards available as separate accessories in capacities as large as 128MB). A 16 MB memory card is really inadequate for a four megapixel camera: You'll want to buy a larger one immediately. (64 MB is a good size, and pretty affordable these days.) The green LED lamp next to the optical viewfinder eyepiece flashes quickly when the camera is accessing or recording to the memory card. The SmartMedia slot is on the lower right side of the camera's back panel, covered by a hinged, plastic door. The card inserts into the slot with the gold electrodes going in first, facing the front of the camera. To remove the card, simply pull it out of the slot (but only when the LED lamp has finished flashing).

SmartMedia cards come with a set of write-protection stickers that, when applied to the card, prevent it from being erased or written to. Each sticker can only be used once, and must be clean to be effective. You can write-protect individual images through the D-40Z's Playback menu. Write-protection prevents images from being altered in any way, except through card formatting, which erases the entire card.

The D-40 Zoom comes with interface software and cables for both Macintosh and Windows computers. It employs a USB Auto-Connect interface for high-speed computer connection. Like all of Olympus' most recent digicams, it is a USB "storage class" device. This means it can connect directly to Mac OS Version 9.1 or later, or Windows Me or Windows 2000 computers (and soon Windows XP), without separate driver software. Storage-class or Auto-Connect connections are also generally faster than device-class ones. In our tests, we found the D-40Zoom was very fast, downloading files at 636 KBytes/second, among the fastest we've tested.

The D-40Z offers numerous (!) image sizes and formats as well as two JPEG quality settings. In Manual, Program, and My Image modes, options include uncompressed TIFF: 2,272 x 1,704-, 2,048 x 1,536-, 1,600 x 1,200-, 1,280 x 960-, 1,024 x 768-, or 640 x 480-pixel resolution; SHQ (Super High Quality) 2,288 x 1,712- or (Enlarge Size) 3,200 x 2,400-pixel resolution; HQ (High Quality) 2,272 x 1,704- or (Enlarge Size) 3,200 x 2,400-pixel resolution; SQ1 (Standard Quality) 2,048 x 1,536-, 1,600 x 1,200-, or 1,280 x 960-pixel resolution, High or Normal compression ratio; SQ2 (Standard Quality 2) 1,024 x 768- or 640 x 480-pixel resolution. We're not sure why you would need quite this many image size options, particularly the interpolated("Enlarge Size") ones. - We personally see little advantage to interpolation, even if doing it in-camera provides "cleaner" results than doing it after the fact in Photoshop or other imaging application. There's no harm in having the interpolated sizes available on the D-40's menus, but we really see little point to it.

Following are the number of images that can be stored on the provided 16MB SmartMedia card:

Image Capacity vs
Resolution/Quality
16MB Memory Card
Hi
Fine
Normal
(Interpolated)
3200 x 2400 		Images
(Avg size)		 - 2
5.8 MB
8
1.9 MB
Approx.
Compression 		- 4:1
12:1
(Interpolated)
2816 x 2112 		Images
(Avg size)
-
3
4.3 MB
10
1.5 MB
Approx.
Compression
-
4:1
12:1
(Interpolated)
2560 x 1920
Images
(Avg size)
-
4
3.6 MB
13
1.2 MB
Approx.
Compression
-
4:1
12:1
Full Size
(4 MP)
2272x 1704
 Images
(Avg size)
1
5
2.8 MB
16
0.99 MB
Approx.
Compression
1:1
4:1
12:1
3 MP
2048 x 1536
 Images
(Avg size)
1
7
2.3 MB
15
1.05 MB
Approx.
Compression
1:1
4:1
9:1
2 MP
1600 x 1200
 Images
(Avg size)
2
11
1.39 MB
32
0.50 MB
Approx.
Compression
1:1
4:1
12:1
1.3 MP
1280 x 960
 Images
(Avg size)
4
18
0.89 MB
49
0.32 MB
Approx.
Compression
1:1
4:1
12:1
SVGA
1024 x 768
 Images
(Avg size)
6
27
0.58 MB
76
0.21 MB
Approx.
Compression
1:1
4:1
11:1
VGA Resolution 640x480
 Images
(Avg size)
16
66
0.24 MB
166
0.10 MB
Approx.
Compression
1:1
4:1
10:1

 


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