Epson PhotoPC 3100Z

In the photographic market, digital cameras are the fastest growing sector - hardly a week goes by when there isn't a new model launched. The Epson 3100Z is one of the newest, replacing the 3000Z in the competitive 3.34 megapixel arena. Externally both cameras look similar, but the 3100Z boasts an improved specification and is Epson's first camera to utilise PIM (Print Image Matching) technology.

When first turned on, the 3100Z takes a laborious 6.5 seconds to start up, which can be frustrating. The rear LCD screen is also difficult to see on a bright day, but is generally excellent for reviewing pictures. Another ever more common feature is the QuickTime movie mode, and the 3100Z can record short clips with sound. There's also a stitch-assist feature for creating panoramic pictures.

The 3100Z is a 3.34 megapixel camera with the option to shoot 4.8 megapixel images with HyPict. There's a choice of four image sizes: Super Fine 2,048 x 1,536, Fine 1,600 x 1,200, Standard 640 x 480, and HyPict 2,544 x 1,904. The HyPict option is an interpolated 4.8 megapixel resolution and, although it delivers good quality, resampling images in Photoshop will give as good or better results. In addition to the file sizes, there are two levels of JPEG compression: Standard and Low. Using Standard compression, a Super Fine image occupies approximately 500Kb, which is useful if you're short on storage space. For higher quality images, there's the option to shoot uncompressed TIFFs. This produces a whopping 9.1Mb file, which would limit you to one picture on the bundled 16Mb card.

Electronics is one thing, but lens quality is also crucial. The 3100Z's 3x optical zoom lens produced outstanding results and with a maximum aperture of f2.0 or f2.5 it's suitable for most shooting situations. Focusing is fully automatic with an option to choose one of three manual focus zones marked as mountain, group and portrait. Colour rendition is very good with a slight tendency to over-enhance the colours. Barrel distortion and chromatic aberrations are all kept within acceptable tolerances too.

Flash photography is well catered for. The built-in flash gives natural-looking results and works particularly well when used as a fill-in flash. There are a number of flash settings including red-eye reduction and leading or trailing Slow Sync. Epson also includes a fixed hot-shoe adaptor, which accommodates most types of small flash units.

In use, the 3100Z offers exceptionally good manual control. Shooting modes include Program, Full Auto and Manual. You can also select from three ISO settings (100, 200 and 400), and exposure compensation is adjustable +/-2EV in increments of half or one-fifth EV stops. One disappointment, though, is the white balance settings. While there's a choice of Auto, fixed 5,200K or Custom configurations, we'd have preferred more predefined settings.

The Epson PhotoPC 3100Z is a very good digital camera with a useful array of features to suit the more advanced user. Image quality is excellent at the top JPEG setting and the integrated flash works well too. The slow start-up time and poor white balance options let it down slightly, though, and overall the Olympus Camedia C-3040Zoom (see Reviews, issue 80, p160) offers better image quality.

Author: Vincent Oliver