Product Reviews

The Olympus C-350Zoom is a compact, 3.2 megapixel digital camera aimed at consumers looking for quality.

Compared with its predecessor, the C-300, the C-350Zoom is a lot more compact and less stocky: at 108mm x 57.5mm x 40mm and weighing a reasonable 170g, it's small and light enough to fit comfortably in a pocket.

As with the C-300, the entire front of the camera is covered by a lens cover that provides a sure grip, as well as protection to the lens and viewfinder optics. It also protects the flash, which no longer has a pop-up mechanism. However, the cover is easily knocked when fully opened, which can unexpectedly power the camera down. Not great when trying to capture one of those fleeting moments.

The C350Zoom boasts a 3x optical zoom, but this is controlled by a small rocker switch on top of the camera that's very heavy in use, requiring a determined effort before the powered zoom activates.

The back of the camera houses a 1.8in LCD screen that displays a lot of detail, although it can be difficult to see in bright sunlight.

Getting around

A small thumb pad next to the screen lets you scroll through the camera settings, and the menu is easy to navigate and logically thought out. However, while the 20cm macro mode, flash and self-timer can be accessed quickly, exposure compensation is located much deeper within the menu. It's adjustable in 0.5EV steps (+/-2.0EV), as opposed to the more useful 0.3EV, but it's welcome nonetheless. Having said that, you have little need to use the compensation, as the Digital ESP multi-pattern metering is remarkably accurate and consistent across

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difficult lighting conditions, and there's a spot-metering option, too.

The camera has four scene-based shooting modes - Portrait, Self-Portrait, Landscape, and Night Scene, as well as a huge range of flash options, including red-eye reduction, slow-sync and a near-perfect fill-flash capability. The 35-105mm f/3.1-5.2 equivalent 3x optical zoom lens is a good performer, although there's a little barrel distortion noticeable at its widest. A 3.3x digital zoom feature is also included, but as with all digital zooms, the loss of resolution makes it not particularly useful.

The camera is powered by two AA alkaline batteries, which are included. The camera also takes either rechargeable 1.2v Ni-MH cells or a CR-V3 disposable lithium battery, but these have to be bought separately. Still, it's a sensible idea, as power consumption is fairly heavy and you can buy a quality fast charger with four nickel metal-hydride cells for around £25.

Movie mode

Olympus bundles an xD-Picture Card with the C350Zoom, but this only has a capacity of 16Mb. It can hold just six shots at the maximum resolution using the highest-quality (SHQ) setting, although 20 images can be stored using the HQ option instead. Two further image sizes are offered for less-demanding output and up to 165 images can be captured at 640 x 480 pixels.

Flash memory is cheap at the moment and we would suggest adding a 64Mb xD-Picture Card, which should cost around £25.

All still images are saved in JPEG form (Exif 2.2) and support print reservation data, such as PIM II and DPOF. There's also a 320 x 240 pixel, 15fps movie mode, but it is not particularly useful, as it can only capture 15 seconds before writing to the memory card.

Quality prints

Picture quality is first rate, especially considering the bargain price, with images exhibiting natural colour rendition and good contrast. Inkjet prints are fine to A4, albeit without the option to crop.

Those looking for an affordable digital camera could do little better than to opt for the Olympus Camedia C-350Zoom. Despite the few handling niggles, it offers great value for money, combining a wide range of sensible features with quality output.