EXCLUSIVES

Olympus Digital Cameras
Words by Bill Troop
February 2004

This review looks at two outstanding ultracompact, high-resolution cameras from Olympus. The $699 (street $400) C-50 offers five megapixels in a tiny, durable, stylish, all-metal case. Picture quality is outstanding, featuring 3x optical zoom - one of Olympus's best lenses yet.

The $599 (street $350) weatherproof Stylus 400 is even more compact, and again has an excellent 3x optical zoom, with particularly good edge sharpness - unusual in a camera in this range. The Stylus has a lower resolution of four megapixels. The basic footprint of each camera is nearly the same, but the Stylus 400 is much thinner. Both cameras are pocketable, but the Stylus 400 is really, really pocketable.

The C-50 measures 3.9 x 2.3 x 1.6 inches and weighs just 6.8 ounces. The Stylus 400 measures 3.9 x 2.2 x 1.3 and weighs 5.8 ounces. The difference is primarily depth, but when you hold them together, the Stylus seems substantially thinner than the measurements indicate.

New batteries, new storage cards

Both cameras feature tiny new lithium batteries and include a charger. Olympus has avoided proprietary batteries in the past on the grounds that customers prefer AAs, which can be bought anywhere. But customers also want longer life and smaller cameras, and the only way that can be done is with proprietary lithium. So Olympus has finally made the switch. Charging time is just two hours.

Also new is the memory card. Olympus has always been a SmartMedia company, although it offers additional slots for other media such as CompactFlash on its larger cameras. But SmartMedia has limitations. Though much smaller than CompactFlash, it is still not small enough for today's compact cameras; it is a little too fragile, and it has been difficult to get the larger capacities that are demanded today. Enter the new xD-Picture Card, which is being used by both Olympus and Fuji. These durable little jewels, about the size of a postage stamp, have capacities that are now as high as 512 MB, with the potential to go up to 8 GB in the future. And with an inexpensive adapter, you can plug xD-Picture Cards right into a CompactFlash slot. So if you have a lot of CompactFlash equipment, your investment in xD cards can be multi-purposed.

Another nice touch is that both cameras use the same standard mini-USB connector. One of the most irritating things about the Olympus camera line in the past has been that each camera had a different USB connector.

Olympus offers USB auto-connect which means you don't need special software for your computer to recognize the camera with current operating systems (Mac 8.6 and higher). Just plug the camera in to the computer and you'll see an "untitled disk" icon on the desktop. Doubleclick and your images are right there ready to edit or drag to a folder.

Controls

The Stylus is designed to make the picture-taking experience as simple as possible, and it has a minimum of controls. It has by far the simplest controls we've ever seen on a digital camera. Totally simple, totally intuitive, and a joy to use.

By contrast, the C-50 is a more professionally-oriented camera, with a greater range of controls. They're by no means difficult to use - and you can always ignore them, just point and shoot, and take perfect pictures 99.9% of the time. But they lack the astonishingly elegant simplicity of the controls on the Stylus 400. Olympus's interface experts have surpassed themselves on this occasion.

In sum, the main difference between these cameras is that exposure settings on the C-50 can be set manually in addition to automatic, while the Stylus 400 offers automatic only. But I can't imagine anyone using the C-50 except in automatic mode.

You would want to move up to one of Olympus's larger cameras - such as the C-5050 - if you needed accessory lenses or external flash equipment or filters, and if you needed extensive manual control such as exposure compensation for flash, additional user customizable settings, and enhanced color balance controls. But most users will be extremely happy with the automatic settings, and you can always if necessary make corrections later in PhotoShop.

Underwater paradise

Both these cameras have stylish underwater housings, usable to 130 feet, for about $200. But you don't have to go deep sea diving to find these housings useful. The fact is, no camera is really comfortable at the beach. Even though the Stylus 400 is weatherproof, it isn't sand-proof. It's those little grains of sand that cause havoc when you take an expensive camera to the beach. Olympus's attractive underwater housings remove this anxiety. Olympus has offered underwater housings in Japan for years. Now at last they have come to America.

Summary

Both these cameras are phenomenal picture taking instruments that anyone from amateur to pro will appreciate. For the utmost simplicity, we'd choose the Stylus 400. For 25% more resolution and more professional controls, we'd select the C-50.

Prices and more information

For lowest prices and extremely detailed reviews, see our favorite digicam website, www.imaging-resource.com. NEWSFLASH: If you're in the market for a compact rather than a subcompact, check out two killer models from Olympus that are just coming out this fall: the inexpensive C-5000, $499 street, is the ideal affordable, 5 megapixel camera for those who want full professional control. But the most dramatic new release is the $799 (street) C-5060, which is Olympus's best compact yet. The C-5060 offers a fully articulated LCD that you can move to any position, and significant improvements in startup time, shutter release time, shot-to-shot time and image processing time. Last year, the Olympus C-5050 was the best selling camera in the $700-$1000 price category during the holiday season. What will probably make the C-5060 even more successful this year is the decreased shutter release time -- otherwise known as the shutter lag time. That's the time it takes between pressing the shutter and actually taking the picture, and it's usually well over half a second in all digicams but the most expensive professional models. Yet, it's also the thing that most casual users like least about digicams, because it prevents you from capturing your pet, child, friend, moving object, whatever -- at just the moment you click the shutter. Well, those frustrations are now officially over. There is finally a digicam that shoots as fast as you can react.