The Olympus C770 (10x Optical Zoom Digital Cam) Rocks!

[Mem]

Received mine lastweek, in the UK it comes with a good bundle,128mb XD card,battery & charger,lens cap,cap strap,main camera strap, very basic remote control unit,quick start chart,basic manual,two CDs,one for Camedia 4.2SE photo software,drivers for 98,full manual in PDF format,and other CD for VideoStudio basic 7SE and few other small bits of brochures ,battery info (non-important stuff).




Mine is the black model and looks awesome,the 10x optical zoom is amazing and very sharp(probably the best of the 10x zooms)battery life is fair and I recommend one or two extra Lithium battery packs(lucky in the UK they are pretty cheap for third party brands like Uniross at £12.99 each).

The camera is small but not too small so don`t expect it to fit in pocket shirts unless they are big,the camera is all metal and feels very solid,the LCD viewfinder is not bad and gives full info of shutter/aperture speeds etc,the back 1.8 LCD is very crisp,low light focussing was better then what I thought it would be, but don`t expect it to be good as those camera with AF assist lights since this camera does not have one.

MPEG4 playback was fine(can do sound as well)just make sure you`ve latest Quicktime software installed,XP owners don`t need to install anything as the camera is recognized with no problems even for transferring files etc.
This 4MP camera is very easy to use & has loads of features that`ll take you awhile to learn them all.

The panorama mode is cool since you can have 10 pictures together(when used with Olympus XD cards).
Last I recommend you buy the filter adaptor and use a 52mm UV/Skylight filter(to protect the lens) if you buy the Raynox filter adaptor,do note the Olympus filter tube adaptor CLA-4 is twice the price of the Raynox model and takes 55mm filters,I`m using the Raynox model(all metal btw) with a B+W MRC 52mm UV filter.
Bottom line is I`m very impressed with the features,build,quality of photos etc.

If you want a 10x optical zoom camera for general use,especially outdoor/landscape this model should be on your short list.

Almost a perfect camera for me(would of liked AA batteries and AF assist light , that would of been icing on the cake ).
Sorry if I went on a bit,feel free to ask me any questions.





Megapixel C770 Review.

 

[FrustratedUser]

:thumbsup:

Got the C720 myself. Love it.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Looks like you are the only one that likes it around here.

 

[Mem]

Looks like you are the only one that likes it around here

FrustratedUser, what`s new ,anyway some more info on the camera,the LCD viewfinder is a little grainy but still viewable,no gripes with the crisp back 1.8" LCD screen,could not see any bad pixels on my camera at all,the focusing speed is pretty fast and shutter lag in general is around half a second or so, which`s pretty good IMHO.

I did say the battery usage was fair,well I`ve read different reports on this from very good to bad,in my case I had the battery low warning come up at around 7.00pm this was when I went to a birthday bash last Sunday and was taking photos from 2pm to about 7.30 pm with quite a few flash shots and playing around with the movie MPEG4 mode for 5 minutes or so.

I like the way you can use the zoom lever to zoom in on the photos that you`ve already taken (either via viewfinder screen or back LCD screen) up to 4x magnification and move the image around from left to right & also up and down when zoomed in.Btw the camera does have manual focusing as well,I forgot to say the PDF camera manual is around 266 pages so a little light reading .

 

[DJFuji]

jeez you guys it's freakin almost 5am here on the west coast and you guys expect the AT community to be jumpin'. People need to SLEEP. =)

Anyway, i've been really interested in a 10x optical zoom camera, but they're so freakin expensive. Right now i'm using a Fuji Finepix 1300 which is an old school 1.3MP 2x digital zoom camera. The shots on that are actually quite clear considering how old that technology is, but i would really like something with optical zoom on it. A lot of the pictures i take now have a very unnatural exposure from the flash and i cant really backup to take it because the camera won't zoom in.

One thing i was worried about was image quality using the 10x zoom and if images got noticably dark because of a lack of light with that much zoom.

 

[Mem]

One thing i was worried about was image quality using the 10x zoom and if images got noticably dark because of a lack of light with that much zoom.

Nope no real difference in brightness through the LCD viewfinder even at 10x optical zoom,remember at 38mm end it`s F2.8 but at 380mm end(10x) it`s F3.7,the image quality is very sharp infact this persuaded me to go with the Olympus C770 rather then Canon S1 IS since the images in Canon photos appear little soft IMHO.

Btw you can adjust the brightness of the LCD viewfinder and back LCD screen and it has a diopter adjustment.

eez you guys it's freakin almost 5am here on the west coast and you guys expect the AT community to be jumpin'. People need to SLEEP. =)

My thread has been up for like almost 24hrs,how much sleep do you need .

 

[DJFuji]

i find it disturbing that i just paid 2 grand for auto repairs without thinking twice, but i really hesitate to pay 500 for a kick ass digicam...

OTOH, the digicam doesnt drive me to work in the morning....

 

[Mem]

i find it disturbing that i just paid 2 grand for auto repairs without thinking twice, but i really hesitate to pay 500 for a kick ass digicam...

Have a look at the C-765 model,it`s virtually the same camera,no hotshoe or MPEG4 movie mode but quite a bit cheaper.

Olympus C-765 Review. .

 

[Sid59]

lets see some pictures that you've taken!

 

[Mem]

Ok here`s some test shots nothing special taken today in my local London area, Link ,note password for visitors is "olympus770" without speechmarks.


The shots of the railway lines are 1x & 10x magnification,gives you idea of the 10x zoom range.

 

[T9D]

Those don't look that great. They are all jaggie and rough looking. does Photobucket downgrade the images to save space?

 

[Mem]

Those don't look that great. They are all jaggie and rough looking. does Photobucket downgrade the images to save space?

Yes they do,original file sizes are just over 1MB for each photo at 1600x1200(2MP res),they downgrade them to 250k each which is a lot, so image quality will be effected.

I`ve only just signed up so was the quickest site I could fine in the short space of time.