Olympus D-490 2.1MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom by Olympus
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Digital camera reviews of Olympus D-490 2.1MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom
Digital camera Review: Great - While it Lasted!!
Summary: 3 Stars
Loved the camera when I first got it, although the picture quality wasn't fabulous it was fine for a first digital camera. However, the camera stopped working just after my one year warranty ran out requiring it to be shipped back to Olympus for a complete overhaul ...Sadly, I know of at least one other with the same problem with an Olympus camera, so I'm wary of the brand now.Digital camera Review: Great Camera - costs more than you think
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first experience with a digital camera and I am very impressed. Part of my decision to purchase this camera was the reasonable cost, but it didn't really turn out that way. By the time I bought the extra card, the adapter, the case, the recharage batteries, it ended up costing $200 more. Unfortunately, it will now cost me another $50 or so because the Camedia software that comes with the camera is, in my opinion, only good for viewing the pictures on your computer. It's ability to print multiple shots and resize your pictures for printing is very poor. The red eye reduction feature doesn't even work. I called tech support and was told it only works if the color is a true fire engine red in the eye. Well, I guess the eyes I photograph have a slight hint of orange in them, so it doesn't work. Oh, well! I'm looking at the Corel Photo-Paint 9 Digital Camera edition software or the Microsoft PictureIt. I'll probably go with Corel, based on the great reviews.
Isn't this site great? Without it I wouldn't have known what to buy.
As far as the camera goes, the features are easy to use once you learn them. Shutting the camera was a little scary at first (as other posts have mentioned), but if it's done carefully, no problem. I thought I was going to break the battery cover trying to put in back on once the batteries were inserted, so that's a little hard to get used to. But the pictures are great and the monitor readout is a nice size. Overall, I recommend this camera.
Digital camera Review: Great Camera for the Price
Summary: 5 Stars
After using this camera for the last few weeks I found that it has exceeded my expectations. The camera has enough nice features to make it a pleasure to use without overwhelming the user with too much configurability. The two things I like about the camera the most are the ability to take rapid sequence pictures and the quality of the flash. The rapid sequence capability allows you to take actions shots (like kids playing soccer) without the standard 2-3 second delay. The camera has an onboard cache that allows HQ quality pictures to be taken at a sub-second rate. The flash is adequate at illuminating an entire room with enough light to capture a quality picture.
Accessories that I have found useful are 2 sets of rechargable batteries, Viking USB reader for the flash card and another flash card.
Digital camera Review: Great Camera until it just DIED.
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this camera for my wife just over a year ago. Since then we have had a great time taking wonderful pictures. I cannot complain about the quality of picture or the everyday use of this camera. We absolutely loved it until one day when it simply did not turn back on. We thought we had just worn the batteries down, but it did not work when we put new ones in. We emailed olympus and they told us how to reset the camera, with no luck. The price to have it fixed is the same price to buy a new one now on ebay. We took it to a local camera shop and they wanted $...just to look at it. They said this problem happens alot with these cameras, which is apparent if you continue to read all the reviews. For now we bought a HewlettPackard 715 with 3.3mp. I did not want to take the chance on the olympus camera again, even though we loved it while it worked.Digital camera Review: Great Camera.
Summary: 5 Stars
I almost took a point off because this camera doesn't have a USB port, but I found a SanDisk USB card reader locally for $40. Amazon didn't sell this reader at the time I write this. The card reader is a necessity, a full 16MB card will take about 20 seconds to transfer with the reader, using the serial port you can go have lunch or something while it downloads. NiMH batteries are also a necessity, for the price of a few lithium batteries you can get 8 NiMH batteries and a charger, that way you can always have a set charged up.Image quality is excellent. I was looking at the C3030 and couldn't see spending that much for a few extra features and another million pixels. Unless you plan on printing out 8x10 prints the extra resolution isn't needed, use the extra money on accessories. Printing the D490 HQ images at 3x5 inches they look as good as 35mm prints. I have run several tests shooting the same image using all the modes of the camera and found the best mode to use is normal HQ, under certain conditions SHQ will give you better color reproduction and slightly sharper edges. The SHQ-TIFF mode images are huge and I have yet to see any difference between it and SHQ mode, even in macro mode with a complex object the images look the same. As for the soft setting and the digital zoom, you are better off taking a normal HQ image and using software on the computer to soften or resize.
The QuickTime movie feature is fun to play with, kinda like having an old 8mm movie camera. I like the fact that you have to raise the flash manually, if you don't want to use the flash you know it's off when it's down. That's better than having to find a button and look at a display to tell if you've turned it off.
The size, price, and image quality make this a great camera to have.