Photo Review Reviews section

Olympus Camedia C-70 Zoom

With its smart, ‘titanium’ coloured metal body, 7.1-megapixel sensor, 5x optical zoom lens and pop-up flash, the Olympus Camedia C-70 Zoom is an attractive package. It’s small enough to slip in a coat pocket and the large (2.0-inch) ‘sunshine’ LCD screen provides a sharp view that is easier to use in bright conditions than standard LCDs. P, A, S and M shooting modes are supported, along with five scene programs and VGA or QVGA video recording at 30 frames per second, plus voice recording. The 5x optical zoom lens can focus to 2cm in macro mode and up to 6x digital zooming is provided. Playback options are very comprehensive.

Olympus SP-350

8.5 Rating

A compact, high-resolution camera with plenty of enthusiast features and 24 scene modes. It produces detailed pictures with accurate colours and well-controlled saturation.Most of the controls and functions keen photographers want are provided in the new Olympus SP-350, which is smaller and less than half the weight of the C-7070 Wide Zoom. There’s a high-resolution CCD imager, P, A, S and M shooting modes and a versatile AF system with 143 selectable AF points. Sensitivity starts at ISO 50 and white balance settings can be fine-tuned to produce accurate colours under different types of lighting.

Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom

[ia] Designed to appeal to photographers who want a lightweight compact digicam with a solid feel and extensive suite of user controls, the Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom sits between the C-8080 and the C-5060 in the Olympus line-up. It has identical styling to the C-5060 Zoom, the same lens and flip-up-and twist LCD monitor and diopter-adjustable optical viewfinder. However, it sports a 7-megapixel sensor, although the CCD is the same size as the C-5060’s.

Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom

[ia] A distinctive shape, prominent lens, high-rising flash and smart black body give the Olympus C-8080 a quality appearance. It’s also distinguished by the many different ways of accessing most controls, its dual CF and xD-Picture card support, and excellent optics. The C-8080’s lens is built to the same standard as the Zuiko lenses made for E System cameras, but manual focusing is via a button control and zooming is lever-operated. The 1.8-inch ‘sunshine colour’ LCD monitor is mounted on a swing-out hinge but it can only be tilted through about 45 degrees. A neat ‘direct histogram’ uses a coloured grid to indicate areas of the displayed image that are overexposed (red) or underexposed (blue), allowing users to fine-tune exposure levels.

Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom

As well as a 5-megapixel sensor and 27-110mm equivalent zoom lens, the Camedia C-5060 Wide Zoom offers just about every control a photographer could require, including RAW and TIFF capture settings. The standard P, A, S and M shooting modes are augmented by five scene settings and program shift is available with the A and S modes.

Leica Digilux 2

A beautifully crafted metal body and M-System styling make Leica’s Digilux 2 stand out from competing cameras – as does its high price tag. Unlike many high-end digicams, where zoom, aperture and focus are accessed via lever/rocker switches or menu settings, on the Digilux 2, these settings are the same as on a film camera. Metering options (centre-weighted, multi-field and spot) are selected via a ring surrounding the shutter button. Click-stops minimise the risk of accidental setting changes. The DC Vario-Summicron lens is big, very fast and distortion-free and its aperture range is much wider than most digicams provide.

Nikon Coolpix 8800

Nikon’s Coolpix 8800 replaces the 8700 at the top of the Coolpix line-up and is the first Coolpix model with Vibration Reduction (VR). Apart from its 10x zoom lens, the 8800 is almost identical to the 8400, with the same sensor and image processor, the same resolution/compression settings and the same controls and shooting modes for both still and video capture. Their control layouts are also similar, although the MF/AF button on the 8800 is on the lens barrel instead of the camera body.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200

Although it has the same sensor, lens and ‘Anti-Shake’ image stabilisation as the DiMAGE A2, Konica Minolta’s new DiMAGE A200 is smaller and lighter, and its price is substantially less. Its build is also different, with a full vari-angle monitor replacing the A2’s hinged LCD, a fixed, diopter-adjustable EVF with no eye sensor and a redesigned pop-up flash.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2

In our tests, the A2 did somewhat better than the A1. We recorded an average combined shutter and focus lag of 0.9 seconds, which reduced to 0.45 seconds with pre-focusing. However focusing was occasionally inaccurate and shot-to-shot times remained at 0.5 seconds in the standard continuous shooting mode and 0.4 seconds in the high-speed mode. Start-up and shut-down times were almost instantaneous, and shot-to-shot times in single frame mode were under one second. Noise reduction processing for shots taken in low light took almost a minute but while shots taken at ISO settings of 100 and 200 were clean and noise-free, noise could be detected in 30-second exposures at ISO 400, and was very obvious in ISO 800 shots.

Kodak EasyShare P880

8 Rating

Plenty of enthusiast features plus good picture quality but dynamic range restrictions and image processing artefacts may reduce user satisfaction.Kodak is targeting enthusiast photographers with its 8-megapixel EasyShare P880 camera. Sporting a fast, 5.8x mechanically operated zoom lens with both zoom and focusing rings and a large, bright LCD it provides most of the controls and functions keen photographers require. The angle of view of this lens starts at the equivalent of 24mm in 35mm format, which is wider than most digicams offer and it extends to 140mm, which will suit many users. [ia]