Product Reviews

There are a number of players in the 4-megapixel market, and with the entry of Nikon's Coolpix 4500 (see Reviews, issue 96, p115) and the new Olympus Camedia C-4000ZOOM it's starting to get crowded. The C-4000 has the looks and handling familiar to the Camedia series. It may be a little boring and boxy by today's standards, but Olympus' proven design could help it stand out from the crowd.

The C-4000's maximum optical resolution is 2,288 x 1,712, although Olympus also offers an interpolated resolution of 3,200 x 2,400, which is better adjusted for printing. There are plenty of other options for altering compression levels and resolutions too. Images are saved onto a supplied 16MB SmartMedia card as TIFF or JPEG files. Olympus recently announced that it plans to support the new xD format, which offers greater capacity in a smaller package, meaning the days of SmartMedia could be numbered.

Moving to the optics, the C-4000 has a 3x optical zoom lens with an f/2.8 aperture. The lens covers a range of 6.5-19.5mm, which equates to 32-96mm on a 35mm film camera. This isn't the best type of lens for shooting close up or in cramped conditions, or for focusing on distant objects, but it's perfect for general picture taking. By this, I mean shots of people, from quick snaps to portraits or small groups - in fact, any type of social photography. The aperture stops down to f/11, which will give a good depth of field and is particularly useful for shooting landscapes. A 3.5x digital zoom can also be applied, roughly approximating to a maximum 10x range, although the quality suffers even with four megapixels to play with.

I had no qualms about the lens quality, which gave sharp results with no significant distortion. This is partly a result of the moderate lens range. You can also attach a number of optional units to the front of the lens for effects such as telephoto, wide angle and macro, which is always a welcome touch.

Autofocus (AF) was quick enough for most situations, although the slight lag will mean that moving objects might be trickier subjects. That said, the C-4000 is still faster than many cameras we've seen. The Full Time autofocus option keeps the camera focusing as needed without half pressure on the shutter release, but this will drain the batteries more quickly so should be used sparingly. AF can be fixed for a sequence or adjusted between exposures,

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which shows the thoughtful nature of the design. There's a manual focus option too, but its implementation is limited.

With an excellent 1/1,000th second to 16-second shutter speed range depending on exposure mode, this camera has plenty in its armoury. Many will shoot with program mode and Digital ESP metering. This gave a high number of accurate results. But, with aperture and shutter priority or manual exposure modes plus spot or multispot metering, this is a compact camera to suit the dedicated photographer who wants control for creative reasons as well as point and shoot for simplicity. If you need the same basic settings, My Mode can be customised to use them automatically. A small amount of flexibility comes from the 100/200/400 ISO range, and noise wasn't a major issue at any setting. Part of the reason for this is a noise-reduction facility for long exposures, which certainly does help. There are also specialist program options - modes designed for specific subjects such as portraits or landscapes. This is, perhaps, a little redundant on a prosumer-type camera like this.

I was also impressed with the flash exposures, which didn't produce over-lit results, common on lesser cameras. Fill-in flash was good too, displaying a nice balance with ambient light. The only issue I would raise is that the flash tended to produce a lot of red-eye.

There are a lot of creativity options too, such as shooting in black and white. Black and white shots are generally best done in-camera, as this saves storage space. Sepia effects can also be selected from the function mode. Further control is possible with sharpness, contrast and saturation adjustments hidden within the menus. Combining two images as a single image adds to the possibilities, so there's plenty for the 'artist'.

Power for the camera comes from two CR-V3 batteries, although four AA cells can also be used. The rear is dominated by a 1.8in TFT LCD, which worked well both indoors and outside. Image quality on the screen is fine, but viewing at the right angle is important. You can also magnify an image on the LCD or show thumbnails or numerous shots while in playback mode. To the right and above are controls for accessing most of the camera's features, and on the top is a dial for selecting operating modes. It all works together neatly and shouldn't take much getting used too. The optical finder has a diopter correction facility, but it doesn't show as much of the image as the LCD. Olympus also supplies some software in the form of Camedia Master 4.

The Olympus Camedia C-4000ZOOM is a logical evolution of the series. It performs well, providing you're prepared to use the more advanced shooting modes and highest resolutions, although the restricted lens range may not appeal to all. It doesn't necessarily have the Coolpix 4500's array of features, but its overall balance is superb. The C-4000 is one of the best 4-megapixel cameras we've seen and for £383 there's nothing better.