Product Reviews

Few companies are able to stay at the cutting edge in the compact digital camera market like Olympus. The C-730 Ultra Zoom is a 3-megapixel camera with a whopping 10x optical zoom lens. This alone isn't original, but the C-730 also has a number of other interesting features, such as being one of the first to use the new xD-Picture Card storage format.

As well as supporting this format, Olympus also provides SmartMedia compatibility to aid the transition from one to the other. However, the two cards can't be loaded at the same time and, with only a 16MB xD-Picture Card included, you may find yourself reaching for your old stock of SmartMedia rather quickly. This would be a shame, as the xD-Picture Card format offers many benefits over SmartMedia, one of which is size. The new card is less than half the size of a SmartMedia card, the benefit being that camera manufacturers can produce even smaller cameras.

This doesn't appear to be the case for the C-730, though. It's a nice size, but certainly not tiny. I also felt that it was a bit light, weighing just 310g (body only), even though some of the body is a metal shell. Handling is enhanced by a smooth, curved grip and, when shooting with the camera held vertically, the left hand supports the weight well. Good design continues with a large and easy-to-operate main top-plate dial, plus rear control buttons.

The integrated flash pops up in a central position, which is fine, although we noticed that it was sometimes easy to obscure it with your hands. The on-board flash mode options include auto, red-eye reduction, slow sync and fill-in. Other flash options include an external flash socket for connecting a dedicated lead and bigger Olympus flash units with or without a bracket for placing it at one side.

Power is provided by two CR-V3 lithium cells, which give good performance. Alternatively, four lithium, NiCad, NiMH or alkaline AA cells can be used. This is a sensible range of options, which provides plenty of flexibility when out and about using the camera. There's also an optional AC adaptor.

Images are viewed on either the rear 1.5in LCD, which seemed a

The 10x optical zoom covers 5.9 to 59mm, or 38-380mm in 35mm camera terms. This is an impressive range, and those who have been involved in traditional photography with similar telephoto effects will appreciate the abilities of this smaller and easy-to-use digital alternative. Olympus also includes a 3x digital zoom.

The lens is also pretty fast with a variable maximum aperture of f/2.8 to f/3.5 - good for ambient or low-light conditions. The full range of speeds cover up to 1/1,000th second down to 16 seconds maximum. Longer exposures are enhanced with Olympus' noise-reduction system, seen in a number of other recent Olympus cameras.

Exposure modes are what you'd expect on a compact, with program, manual aperture and shutter priority. For the novice, there are some subject-based programs and a movie mode too. The whole combination hinges around an ISO range of 100, 200 or 400 ISO, plus the increasingly popular auto selection for those wanting point-and-shoot simplicity. With this as the starting point, you can fine-tune the exposure using the spot meter, Digital ESP multipattern or multizone readings. Overall, it's a great range of features, which worked well.

The lens AF system is pretty standard, but manages to take most things in its stride. However, we did notice it needs a second to settle on the intended position. This, combined with a shutter time lag, takes some getting used to and you may find it difficult to use the C-730 for capturing action.

In terms of image quality, our test exposures were good with slightly saturated colours, which add a punch that many will enjoy. You can also adjust image quality settings - such as saturation and sharpness - in-camera for extra control. The maximum interpolated image size of 3,200 x 2,400 pixels is ideal for fairly large prints and there are options down to 640 x 480 pixels for quick snaps. We obtained some good A4 prints from our photo inkjet printer at its default settings, and by experimenting with the exposure, sharpness and other settings we could even get some reasonable prints up to A3.

The C-730 isn't suited to those looking to capture fast action, although the massive 10x optical zoom is a superb feature on a camera in this class. Image quality is also good and support for the xD-Picture Card is a forward-looking feature, although it does nothing, currently, to reduce the physical size of the camera.