Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom Review

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Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom
4.1 stars
Average rating for this product is: 4.1 out of 5

From 0 ratings and 12 reviews

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Colin Chettleburgh.'s Review of Olympus C-700 Ultra Zoom

31st Mar 2002

Overall Rating

4.5 stars
  • Value for money
    5 stars
  • Ease of Use
    4 stars
  • Image Quality
    5 stars
  • Features
    5 stars
Good Points

Good weight and balance. Awesome lens and zoom capability. Well laid-out menus, good selection of on-screen menus when shooting. Auto modes well programmed. Quality feel and build.


Bad Points

Viewfinder poor in low light conditions.


General Comments

I bought my Olympus C700 digital camera mostly for sailing photography. The 10x optical zoom is perfect for this and the picture quality is superb, even at 10x. I have had one picture enlarged to A2 and was amazed at the definition. The investment in the lens rather than a higher-resolution chip has really paid off. Needless to say, high shutter speeds are needed at max. zoom, but these can be normally be achieved by 'pushing' the ISO setting, up to 800 if necessary.
I previously owned a C2020, so the menus were easy to follow and the short menus in the viewfinder when shooting are well selected, although one or two popular items are a little buried.
Despite the outwardly specialist nature of this camera, it is very capable and versatlie all-rounder and gives all the control a 'defecting' 35mm SLR user will want, giving the equivalent of about 35-400mm continuous zoom. Having said that, the programming of the auto modes is exremely good, so the rest of the family can produce good results.
I have experienced none of the software problems some other reviewers have. This may be because I use a card reader rather than download from the camera. If this is so, £30 is a small price to pay when investing so much money, plus it's a lot faster!.
My only complaint is with the viewfinder. I am used to an optical one and while I accept the substantial advantages of TTL, I find it very difficult to use the relatuvely low-res. screen in low light condtions. If Olympus were to improve this, it would be very difficult indeed to criticise this camera at all. Having said that, nothing else in this price bracket offers this level of optical resloution and if I were to buy now, I would still make the same choice.

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