Product Reviews

Five-megapixel digital cameras promise superlative results - even with image enlargements up to A3 size. A five-megapixel chip now features in the top-end offerings from most digital camera makers. Olympus' five megapixel C-5050Zoom is positioned as a professional digital camera, but without the bulk of a digital SLR. Stiff competition comes in the form of models like Nikon's CoolPix 5700 and Minolta's Dimage 7i, as well as Canon's four-megapixel G3.

The specification of the Olympus is stunning, with a fast f1.8 lens giving good results in low light, a good-sized LCD screen, a built-in flash, a hotshoe for an external flash and that high-resolution chip. The camera supports multiple storage options, including Compact Flash and IBM Microdrive (although not the 340Mb models), SmartMedia (SM) and the new, miniature xD cards. The camera can hold both a CF and xD or SM card at once.

The whole package is cased in a solid-feeling and practical black body with a comfortable rubberised grip. The pictures it takes live up to the camera's high specification, coping with tricky situations such as backlighting admirably, and providing a pleasing fill-in flash effect for daylight portraits. With an uncompressed TIFF format image coming in at 14Mb, there are few worries about reproducing its pictures in print.

Despite this, we found the Olympus hard to like. Compared with digital SLRs, its buttons felt fiddly, and some of its features are really gimmicks. The camera plays an annoying tune and animation when you switch it on; it's possible to cancel sound effects but doing so means navigating a series of menus, and the manual is little help.

Lost control

The camera's controls are an incoherent mess. Changing flash modes means pressing a button on the camera's left, turning a jog dial on the right, and then

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selecting OK from a button in the middle, situated in between the menu navigation buttons. This would not be so bad if Olympus was consistent: other functions, such as setting white balance, use the navigation and OK buttons but not the jog dial.

Just as irritating is the decision to put the power switch under the camera's main mode selection dial and above the jog dial. Using one or the other runs the risk of switching off the power, unless you have very small fingers.

The camera's worst feature is its lack of a manual zoom. The C-5050 sports a 3x optical zoom, but moving between the wide and tele settings takes over a second using the camera's zoom lever. Anyone used to an SLR will instinctively grab the camera's lens ring instead, but this is purely decorative.

The flash is another disappointment. Positioned just above and to the right of the lens, it's almost guaranteed to cause red eye. Olympus does offer a dedicated, external flash unit that supports a host of modes, but it wasn't available for this review. But at this price, a flip-up flash, such as that on the Nikon Coolpix 5700, makes all the difference to final image quality.

Olympus also only ships the camera with a 32Mb SmartMedia card. It's by no means the only manufacturer to do this, but extra storage is a must since this will hold just two images at uncompressed, full resolution.

Despite our misgivings, the C-5050Zoom isn't a bad camera - in fact, it's a very good one with some unfortunate ergonomic shortcomings. Points in its favour include a good battery life, using the supplied rechargeable cells, a built-in dioptre for users with glasses, and a viewfinder that, while not all that bright, is optical and not an LCD. It's also a solid machine that could stand the rigours of, for example, a surveyor's schedule.

Red eye issues

Anyone who is happy with the Olympus C-5050's basic settings won't be disappointed by the results, unless they take a lot of pictures where red-eye would be a problem. However, users who need to move between modes and settings, or who like manual control of their work, would be advised to try out the camera alongside some of its rivals. If the quirky ergonomics and plethora of interfaces doesn't put you off, the C-5050Zoom could be a very good buy. For others, though, a camera with more logical controls will be better, even if it is technically inferior to the Olympus.