Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom

I purchased this camera kind of last minute to replace my Olympus C-700 as I was going to be taking photos for a magazine at the 2004 R/C Car Off-Road Nationals in Vegas. I definitely needed a better camera than my older 2.1MP digi cam. I was nervous about purchasing a DSLR with less than a week before I left for the Nationals as I'd never used one before and wasn't going to get a lot of training. So, I went with the C8080 as it had a ton of manual options and settings and was 8MP.

The camera was great. There are a ton of functions that I still don't even know about or use, but the A/S/M priority settings are good and I really like the wheel buttons and menu options. I went with another Olympus over any other brand as I was familiar with their settings/options through the C700.

I've used this camera for high-speed action shots of r/c cars in all types of outdoor light conditions, in snow for snowboarding, at the beach, different landscapes all over the SW US, etc.

It doesn't really shine indoors for action shots in low-light conditions with dirt in the air, but I'm not sure what would.

This camera has held up through dustings due to r/c cars flying by and roosting up dust, dust from mountain biking, snow flakes... It's held up wonderfully to the beating it has taken on my mountain bike handlebars and still takes great shots.

The zoom isn't killer, but I purchased the telephoto zoom lens. This is good for long zoom shots, but for anything in between you'll need to take it off. The camera has to zoom in a bit so that you don't see the zoom lens.

This camera is big and burly. It has survived a lot with me behind the lens and still works great. The start-up was another big draw for me and it still starts up super quickly. The image quality is great for cropping/resizing photos and the 4x6 photos I've printed have all been spectacular.

Sharp quality photos, good menu selection, easy to get to manual options and buttons a-plenty.

Ability to purchase wide-angle or tele-photo zoom lenses was a plus.

Takes great action shots on sports mode, scenery mode (I like the colors better), and in manual mode.

Super easy to plug into computer and transfer photos to a folder of your choice and name and delete photos all in one fell swoop.

I like the fact that it has two memory card options - xD and Compact Flash.

Battery is pretty long-lasting. I only had to recharge once during the day ever, at the Nationals. I took over 800 photos in 3 days and had the camera on most of the day, so it needed a recharge. Otherwise it's always been fine using it throughout the day.

Sometimes in manual settings (A/S/M at different settings) the photos are a bit dark, even with the ISO turned up.

Not so great indoors with poor lighting and dust in the air.

Zoom isn't great, but you can buy the telephoto lens.

Olympus C-700 and recently purchased a Canon SD800.

Bought my first C8080 in April of 2004-had been using a Casio QV-4000. What an upgrade! Bought this mainly for the lens-hemmed and hawed about a Canon Rebel/or Nikon D70. Went to a photo conference and spoke with a D70 owner-really complained about the dust. That sealed the deal. Really glad I did-have shot quite a few weddings with it-really not meant for sports or action-probably have taken 5000 shots-99% good-1% bad (my fault.) Had used a Pentax Super Program for 11 years-sold all the bodies (3) and my collection of lenses (15). Bought another C8080, an Olympus flash fl-40 (many flash modes) and a fl-cbo5 cable. Best move I ever made.

Well made body-lens is terrific. TTL w/Olympus FL-40 or Fl-50 flash. Uses (2)styles of memory cards. Good battery life-bought off brand batteries fo 1/3 price. Comes w/hood & wireless remote.

Almost unusable for sports or action. Printed manual is very basic-downloaded complete manual from CD-print specific pages. Not a beginner camera.

Casio QV-4000

Never used

My perspective on the C-8080 is based on 30+ years of photography experience. My first 35mm SLR film camera was an Olympus OM-1 and my last was a Canon EOS A2, which I sold in January of this year. I’ve also dabbled with medium format film using an old Ricohflex TLR that I inherited from my father. I’ve used a variety of B&W and color negative films as well as color slide films over the years. For a while, I owned a Minolta Dimage 7i and I presently own a Canon A80, which is used for family snapshots. I’ve taken over 500 shots since getting my C-8080 two weeks ago. Here are my impressions of this fine digital camera: Image Quality: In a nutshell, image quality is excellent at ISO 50-100 and very good at ISO 200. With uniformly lit subjects, ISO 400 also produces reasonably good image quality. However, shadow noise is very prominent at ISO 200 and above and unacceptable at ISO 400. In my judgment, the C-8080 produces images that are discernibly more detailed than those produced by the D7i at comparable resolution/scale. Indeed, I find that C-8080 images have significant resolution/clarity even when viewed at 100%, which was not generally the case with images produced by my D7i. Thus, in my opinion, the increased resolution of the C-8080 over that of the D7i goes beyond the 8- versus 5-megapixel difference in sensor size between the respective cameras. My perception is that the C-8080 is sharper at the wide end than at the tele end, at least when used at the widest aperture settings. At the wide end, the lens is very sharp even wide open. Body Design: The C-8080 fits very nicely in my medium-large hands. It’s also very nicely balanced in operation. The grip areas, front and rear, are well designed and have an excellent feel. Overall, the camera is very well constructed. Controls are easy to access and logically organized. I really like the fact that buttons are available for several of the key controls. Displays: The EVF of the C-8080 seems to be a bit of an improvement over the one found in the Dimage 7i, but not greatly so, IMO. I wear eyeglasses and the viewfinder has a more or less adequate eyepoint for using the camera with my glasses on. This was not the case with the D7i. The LCD display is bright and clear, much better than the one in the D7i. As for the display contents, overall, everything is nicely laid out. I can imagine that some users might find the display too cluttered and prefer to use a blank screen or a screen with only the focus point displayed. Menu System: Once I acquainted myself with the menu system by READING THE USERS MANUAL, I found it to be very easy to navigate. The organization and layout are very logical. Control Buttons: Overall, a nice assortment of easy to use control buttons. One minor gripe is that the exposure control button (+/-) is also used to activate the histogram display in the user activated histogram display mode. When this option is selected, you have to go through the menu system to perform exposure compensations. I wish that the camera had a dedicated histogram display button (am I missing something?). Autofocus System: The autofocus system of the C-8080 is reasonably fast and accurate under good lighting conditions. Somewhat surprisingly, I am of the impression that the iESP focus mode is more accurate than the spot focus system, especially in low light conditions. Under normal indoor lighting conditions, iESP autofocus mode is slow, but reasonably accurate. Manual Focus: Although I would much prefer that the camera have real manual focus control (like the D7i), the display-based electronic manual focus system is pretty easy to use, albeit much slower than I would like it to be. IMO, the focus setting should adjust much more quickly when the focus control buttons are held down. Exposure Accuracy: The C-8080’s exposure accuracy is outstanding, both indoors and out and with or without a flash. Importantly, there’s a convenient exposure lock button on the front of the camera that’s very useful in harsh or uneven lighting situations where proper exposure of the main subject is difficult. In addition, the EVF is sensitive and accurate enough to provide a reasonably good sense of the selected exposure. Built-In Flash: In a nutshell, I’m very impressed so far with the performance of the C-8080’s built-in full and fill flash capability. Overall Conclusion: Overall, I’m very impressed with the C-8080. My perception is that it has an image resolution that rivals or exceeds that of scanned 35mm film, whereas this was not the case with the Dimage 7i. The C-8080 is an exceptional value at its current street price of $450 and I feel fortunate to have purchased one at this price. One last note--if you buy this camera, READ THE MANUAL!

See above.

Noise at higher ISO settings.

Minolta Dimage 7i.

Not used.

I sold my Canon Rebel XT and bought this camera, for one good reason- DSLRs do not have live-view LCDs! Sure, you can see what the lens is seeing, but NOT what the camera is actually metering for. Also, Canon doesn't offer a spot meter in the Rebels or the 20D! So I took a small step back and bought two cameras for the price of one. I use the Olympus C8080 for portraits and weddings because of it's 8 Megapixel sensor, superb lens with no purple fringing, and the swivel LCD (which is another feature you won't find on a digital SLR). The 140mm max zoom may seem limiting to some, but I'm still shooting while DSLR owners are changing lenses from wide to tele. This camera may not be as rapid fire or fast focusing as the SLRs, but close enough to get the job done. The body of this camera is a work of art; it is like they took a mold of my right hand and modeled the body after it. That was the first thing I noticed right out of the box. The photo quality is as good as any that I took with my Rebel XT, although you have to keep the ISO settings below 400, unles you want the grainy look. Battery life is so good, that for the first time in 6 years, I haven't ordered any spares right away. Usually, I buy two spare batteries with every camera. I have yet to completely drain this one in a day's shooting. Downsides to this camera are: Slow write-time to a Compactflash Microdrive (I think they do it on purpose, to coax you into their XD cards), and a more complex menu system than most cameras. An occasional problem I have is keeping the lens set to Macro. I'll set it there, focus the shot, and then the camera drops itself out of macro before I snap the shot. My other camera is a Panasonic FZ15, with its Leica Image Stabilized 35mm-435mm zoom lens, f2.8 all the way through. Check out the new FZ20, but don't sharpen any images from it or you will get grain. The FZ series is very good for high zoom work, although you won't find any above 5 MP,and they are not very ergonomic for full day shoots. The C-8080 is the best for that use. I gave the camera 4 stars on particulars because of the weeknesses, but when you consider the evolutionary statis of ZLRs as a whole, this one is farther than most, so overall, I give it a 5.

+Awesome quality in lens and body +Fast start-up, less than a second in most cases +Ergonomics; fits my hand perfectly +Great Spot Meter, very accurate +Long life battery +8 MP sensor +Compactflash or Microdrive + XD +Pixel Mapping and correction +Very realistic photos!

-Only 140mm zoom, although I'm guessing that some trade-offs had to take place to achieve the near perfect lens quality -Macro doesn't stay on Macro for me, perhaps I'm doing something wrong? - Slow write times to Micro-drive

Canon G1, G3, Rebel XT 350D, Panasonic FZ10, 15, 20, Olympus 740.

When my camera arrived, it had a stuck pixel on the CCD, showing up as a white square in every shot. I called Olympus, and they directed me to the pixel mapping feature in the setup menu. It checked all pixels, and then programmed the camera to compensate for the bad one. So- either Olympus is very insightful to include this feature on the camera, OR they have had an overabundance of pixel issues in the past to warrant the need for this on-camera program. Either way, they were helpful, and I'm satisfied with the solution (even though I know that one pixel out of the millions is mirroring the one next to it).

The Olympus C-8080WZ is all about the great lens. The pictures one is able to capture with this camera rival those of DSLR. This camera is not for the very beginner purchasing his/her first digital camera. It is for someone who aspires to take professional quality pictures without investing in too much equipment. Although great results can be obtained using the Program mode, you are only taking advantage of a small portion of this wonderful camera. The build quality is excellent. Most of the camera is encased in magnesium alloy and rubber around the hand grip. It is not a small camera, but very close to a full DSLR camera size. The wide zoom is great for landscape and group pictures. This camera is not the best for capturing sports and action, although it can be done with varying results.

Great lens. Probably the best in its class. Wonderful macros. Build quality. Ease of use after getting to know the camera. Price.

Fast action focus/low light focus is slow.

Canon G series, A series, Nikon digital cameras, and Kodak cameras. This is the best so far.

No experience thus far.