Strengths: •Nice crisp shots with good lighting.
•Faster than previous Olympus offerings.
•Great wide angle lens for group and landscape shots.
•Lots of settings for nearly every occasion.
•Custom settings
Weaknesses: •Low light action shots aren't practical.
•Color density isn't as good as the Canon cameras I've used (but Photoshop compensates nicely).
•Lots of settings for nearly every occasion -- and I tend to forget to use them which messes up shots.
•Custom settings -- that I forget which set-up does what.
Bottom Line:
Great mid sized mid resolution camera. It has many features that are handy when I remember to use them. It is definately required to use the indoors setting for lowlight or artificial light settings (my 4040 did fine if I left it on Auto). I use the camera when cycling and switching to settings in time to get shots of friends tends to be a race -- its easy to change settings -- but requires navigating through the menus.
Similar Products Used: Olympus 4040
Olympus 5050
Canon G3
Canon s400 Digital Elph
Type of photography: Outdoor
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Kathleen Luman
a Intermediate
Date Reviewed: September 28, 2006
Strengths: Long Battery life. The LCD screen that you can flip or rotate is a great feature. It has many other features to choose from. It is very durable which was also important to me because I worry about dropping it. I have had it for well over a year and it still is in aexcellent shape and takes great picuters. I have never had any problems. It has a few different opitions for picture storage instead of just one certain kind of media.
Weaknesses: Size of the camera itself. I wish it was small enough to put into my pocket so I could carry it with me at all times.
Bottom Line:
I love this camera. Has great battery life which is important to me. It takes beautiful pictures. It took awhile to learn all of it's different features but it was well worth it. I would recommend this camera to anyone.
Strengths: Lots of features
8 personalised setup modes
Weaknesses: Slow focus
Bottom Line:
I got the 5060 because I wanted a camera that is portable, but also have the features I enjoyed on my 5050. The thing to remember is that the OLYMPUS C-5060 is not a true point and shoot and that you have to get involved in order to produce a decent exposure. You have to take time to compose what you want.
Strengths: Takes good pics when working, rotating LCD is cool when working, ability to use XD and compact flash, records movies
Weaknesses: can't use AA batteries, bulky, wide angle distortion, doesn't come with AC adapter
Bottom Line:
Don't buy this camera until Olympus recalls it. Numerous people, including myself, are having problems with menus popping up on the LCD without touching the camera. Also buttons stop working when pressed, such as the arrow buttons around the OK button. My camera worked for about 3 months before the problem arose. It was a good camera while it worked, but since it is pretty important for the camera to work I must give it a bad review, especially since Olympus is not eager to help.
Strengths: Real wide to decent telephoto zoom. VERY good macro, fast enough AF for general use, quick operation with acceptable shutter lag ( for a non DSLR ). GREAT image quality! you can really make a 16x20 from this camera. Batteries last VERY long even with LCD on. Works well with non dedicated external flashes, loads of usable features like a spot meter that really works. Well built, solid feel. Can take filters! finally a prosumer digicam I can use a polarizer on! very easy usb connection that needs no extra drivers
Weaknesses: No mechanical manual focus or zoom, raw shots take forever to write, tiny finder that has no information, no backlit external information lcd, gets noisey past 100 iso ( all the prosumer cams do ). Can take quite a bit to learn all the features. no firewire or usb 2, no Pc sync socket.
Bottom Line:
Well After several disapointments using other Digi cams I ordered the 5060 based on experience with a 5050. The camera is still light despite it's large size ( for a digi cam ) and it handles reasonably well. Now for my first headaches, WHY CAN'T PROSUMER DIGI CAMS HAVE PARRALEX CORRECTED VIEWFINDERS!!! It's not to expensive to do this, also adding a bit more info ( well any ) to the finder would make this a poor mans digi leica. I did have some problems with the camera holding it's settings and slow/inacurate zooming but the new firmware update fixed this. In the field the pics are well exposed and the camera handles admirably! I shot 300 frames at a fashion show with it, it never missed, every shot was resonably in focus, it was fast enough except for a few moments when I needed to pull out the film SLR to get a model twirling etc. While this is a good performance I would not use this cam for sports, it's frame rate is too slow for very fast moving action. In the dark it focuses quickly on anything with in 30ft of the af assist but past that it's usless in less than 1 ev, this is when the viewfinder would work great IF it had a mechanical zoom/focus ring which it doesn't nor focusing aids. Now as far as image quality, having used DLSR! and not being a big fan of Prosumer stuff this camera took me by surprise here! the images are GREAT! at 80 iso, lowered sharpness to reduce noise it compares well with almost as much resolution as a DSLR, just 1 mp less image size to work with. Past 100 iso the noise ramps up quickly but even up to 400 iso the images are usable with out using built in noise reduction or 3rd party. Raw mode is a blessing and a curse, great image quality with no artifacts, reasonable noise but the camera locks for 7-9 sec while it writes to a CF card, Tiff mode 14 meg files are not worth it with raw. Shq jpeg mode is reasonable with little artifacting, hq artifacts more and is softer but still not as bad as many other cameras best jpeg quality. Prints look great up to 11x14" I would even dare say it makes passable 16x20" prints with some photoshop work. The zoom range is with in 50-70% of what most people would need and loaded with actual useful features I am wowed by this little camera, I almost wish the E1 chip was in here, then it would be a real winner, as it is it's a great little digi cam that almost could have been a digital leica.
