Olympus C-860L

Designed to look and work much more like a conventional film camera than most of the competition, the Olympus C-860L is probably the most intuitive digital camera to use. Push back (he lens cover/switch, press the big silver button on the top panel, and the photo’s taken. To view images, press the green button next to the LCD viewer on the back panel, then press + or • to page through. All the controls are well labelled with understandable icons, and all this is backed up with a well-laid-out manual.
On the top panel are buttons for the menu, digital 2x zoom, timer and Hash setting when in shooting mode. These duplicate multidisplay, image protect, printer and erase functions when viewing images. An 8M SmartMedia card hides under the handgrip, which also houses the four AA batteries supplied. Serial, TV and power-in sockets are under a rubber flap on the left-hand end of the body.
The camera was comfortable to hold and easy to use, but like many others it used a lot of power. Rechargable batteries would be a good idea. The 36mm autofocus lens and 1.3 megapixel combination was fine for most snapping, and combined with a digital zoom and a macro option, offered reasonable performance. The combination of digital zoom and image quality selection on the same button was irritating, and it resulted in frequent mistakes.
The camera was reasonably fast. It took two seconds to start, 3.5 seconds to refresh, but downloading was much slower because of the serial-only connection. It took 21 seconds to download a 190K high resolution image using the basic Camedia Master software.
For a point and snap unit, the options aren’t too bad. Exposure, metering, white balance, ISO setting and panorama modes are all configurable. Image quality was good considering the pixel rating. Good definition and colour was available up to about 150% enlargement, but |ag-gies became evident at this point. Good shadow detail and saturation were obvious, but overall detail was slightly less than the Agfa ePhoto CL30. A flash was essential indoors. Without it, the image lost detail and colour. Using the flash gave detailed, neutral results. All things considered, the C-860L
is a well-balanced unit, but probably best for the snapper rather than the serious photographer.