Olympus Digital camera product review

Olympus Digital camera product review

I bought an Olympus 340 digital camera a few years ago for my fledgling
web page company and have been rather disappointed ever since.

First of all, the thing cost almost $300 dollars at the time.

The instructions are wrong, hard to read, scattered across 185
different pages in 3 languages.

The instructions for this camera are extremely poorly written. The main
functions that you will be using most, 1). How to disable the flash,
2). How to download your pictures from the camera, and 3). How to erase
old pictures, are not in one place. They are mixed in with and
scattered across 185 pages of text, hidden and diluted by useless
instructions for a myriad of superfluous functions you will never use.

In some cases the instructions ARE NOT EVEN ACCURATE. The erase
function for example POINTS TO THE WRONG BUTTON. Not to mention the
fact that they forgot to tell you the shutter guard needs to be CLOSED,
and the video monitor needs to be ON, or it will not work at all.

What I had to do was physically bend and fold the pages of the
instruction manual to make it easier to find the correct instructions.
I also had to overwrite some pages in heavy magic-marker so that the
most basic functions would be clearly visible and easy to find.
Otherwise it will take you about 1 day to figure out how to take 1
picture, and download it to your computer.

I have to keep the instruction manual with the camera at all times just
to make sure it will actually WORK when called upon.

No power supply.

This camera DOES NOT come with a power supply. If you do not want to
buy a new set of batteries every 30 minutes for this camera you will
HAVE to buy their proprietary power supply for an extra $30 - $40
dollars. (This is on top of the $300 dollars needed to purchase the
camera in the first place). If you do not buy their power supply, you
will go through batteries like water through a faucet.

Even if you do buy their power supply, you will be tethered to an
electrical outlet for the duration of the cameras use. In other words,
you will need to plug it into the wall and stand there for the entire
time that you are using the camera.

If you don't want to stand next to an electrical outlet for the
entire time you are taking pictures, better bring about $20 - $30
dollars worth of extra batteries.


Short battery life.

The battery life for this camera is about 30 minutes at best. If you
use the video monitor to view your pictures, the batteries will die in
about 20 - 30 minutes. That's assuming you installed brand new
batteries before hand. If your batteries are slightly used, the video
screen will not work at all. This means that the amount of money you
save developing film is lost to the fact that you will need to buy $5
worth of new batteries just about every single time you use this
camera.

What I do is not even use the video monitor at all. In fact, I remove
the batteries from the camera at all times unless I am actually
physically snapping a picture. This seems to save the battery life at
least beyond 20 minutes per use.

This camera does not even come with a carrying case.

In short, unless you intend to take a lot of indoor pictures while
standing next to an electrical outlet, I would recommend just buying
one of the cheap and easy to use disposable cameras you can find at the
corner convenience store.

You wont lose time and money trying to decipher the superfluous amount
of data and features that you will never use, the batteries wont die
out on you at a crucial time, and the pictures can always be placed on
a CD for you by the store that does the photo processing.

Olympus digital cameras? A $300 dollar battery eater.

You're *reviewing a camera you bought a "few" years ago?




wrote in message
oups.com...
| Olympus Digital camera product review
|
| I bought an Olympus 340 digital camera a few years ago for my fledgling
| web page company and have been rather disappointed ever since.
|
| First of all, the thing cost almost $300 dollars at the time.
|
| The instructions are wrong, hard to read, scattered across 185
| different pages in 3 languages.
|
| The instructions for this camera are extremely poorly written. The main
| functions that you will be using most, 1). How to disable the flash,
| 2). How to download your pictures from the camera, and 3). How to erase
| old pictures, are not in one place. They are mixed in with and
| scattered across 185 pages of text, hidden and diluted by useless
| instructions for a myriad of superfluous functions you will never use.
|
| In some cases the instructions ARE NOT EVEN ACCURATE. The erase
| function for example POINTS TO THE WRONG BUTTON. Not to mention the
| fact that they forgot to tell you the shutter guard needs to be CLOSED,
| and the video monitor needs to be ON, or it will not work at all.
|
| What I had to do was physically bend and fold the pages of the
| instruction manual to make it easier to find the correct instructions.
| I also had to overwrite some pages in heavy magic-marker so that the
| most basic functions would be clearly visible and easy to find.
| Otherwise it will take you about 1 day to figure out how to take 1
| picture, and download it to your computer.
|
| I have to keep the instruction manual with the camera at all times just
| to make sure it will actually WORK when called upon.
|
| No power supply.
|
| This camera DOES NOT come with a power supply. If you do not want to
| buy a new set of batteries every 30 minutes for this camera you will
| HAVE to buy their proprietary power supply for an extra $30 - $40
| dollars. (This is on top of the $300 dollars needed to purchase the
| camera in the first place). If you do not buy their power supply, you
| will go through batteries like water through a faucet.
|
| Even if you do buy their power supply, you will be tethered to an
| electrical outlet for the duration of the cameras use. In other words,
| you will need to plug it into the wall and stand there for the entire
| time that you are using the camera.
|
| If you don't want to stand next to an electrical outlet for the
| entire time you are taking pictures, better bring about $20 - $30
| dollars worth of extra batteries.
|
|
| Short battery life.
|
| The battery life for this camera is about 30 minutes at best. If you
| use the video monitor to view your pictures, the batteries will die in
| about 20 - 30 minutes. That's assuming you installed brand new
| batteries before hand. If your batteries are slightly used, the video
| screen will not work at all. This means that the amount of money you
| save developing film is lost to the fact that you will need to buy $5
| worth of new batteries just about every single time you use this
| camera.
|
| What I do is not even use the video monitor at all. In fact, I remove
| the batteries from the camera at all times unless I am actually
| physically snapping a picture. This seems to save the battery life at
| least beyond 20 minutes per use.
|
| This camera does not even come with a carrying case.
|
| In short, unless you intend to take a lot of indoor pictures while
| standing next to an electrical outlet, I would recommend just buying
| one of the cheap and easy to use disposable cameras you can find at the
| corner convenience store.
|
| You wont lose time and money trying to decipher the superfluous amount
| of data and features that you will never use, the batteries wont die
| out on you at a crucial time, and the pictures can always be placed on
| a CD for you by the store that does the photo processing.
|
| Olympus digital cameras? A $300 dollar battery eater.
|

On 8 Dec 2005 06:29:17 -0800, wrote:

Olympus Digital camera product review
....

Yahoo email address, from Google, and stupid.
Another troll.

--
Bill Funk
Replace "g" with "a"
funktionality.blogspot.com

Yahoo email address, from Google, and stupid.
Another troll.

Yeah, probably, but rather an odd one. He typed an awful lot, and used
gramatically correct English. I think he put some serious effort into a
review of a 1999 camera. I actually rather enjoyed it. It shows how far
we've come in the intervening years. I rather wish he'd done a review of
the image quality. )

Bill Funk wrote:
On 8 Dec 2005 06:29:17 -0800, wrote:


Olympus Digital camera product review

...

Yahoo email address, from Google, and stupid.
Another troll.


doesnt seem like a troll... maybe just needed all these
days to figure out how to download the images, and mark
all the pages in the poor manual wonder which camera
it was, I used to have a 1.3mp olympus from that era
that I was pretty happy with... stopped using that one
after it would not turn on, the power switch was tied
to the sliding lens cover...

Now my kids use that 4-AA battery eater as their
pretend camera, so that sucker is still getting used!

irax.

Derek Fountain wrote:

Yahoo email address, from Google, and stupid.
Another troll.

Yeah, probably, but rather an odd one. He typed an awful lot, and used
gramatically correct English. I think he put some serious effort into a
review of a 1999 camera. I actually rather enjoyed it. It shows how far
we've come in the intervening years. I rather wish he'd done a review of
the image quality. )

The best trolls are the ones not easily recognized. Nevertheless too little
flame bait here to suspect a troll here

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 09:52:15 -0600, Iraxl Enb wrote:

doesnt seem like a troll... maybe just needed all these
days to figure out how to download the images, and mark
all the pages in the poor manual wonder which camera
it was, I used to have a 1.3mp olympus from that era
that I was pretty happy with... stopped using that one
after it would not turn on, the power switch was tied
to the sliding lens cover...

He did say it was an Olympus 340. I wonder if its full manual was
only on the included CD, which is the way Olympus doesn't it with
more recent cameras. He might have preferred the 2MP Canon S10, but
back then it might have set him back more than twice the $300 he
paid for the Oly 340. It sounds as if the camera uses alkaline
batteries. I also wonder if he ever heard of NiMH rechargeables?
Oh well, by his name he identified himself as a newbie. Guess he
also needs to find a cluebie.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Olympus Digital camera product review

I bought an Olympus 340 digital camera a few years ago for my fledgling
web page company and have been rather disappointed ever since.

First of all, the thing cost almost $300 dollars at the time.

The instructions are wrong, hard to read, scattered across 185
different pages in 3 languages.

The instructions for this camera are extremely poorly written. The main
functions that you will be using most, 1). How to disable the flash,
2). How to download your pictures from the camera, and 3). How to erase
old pictures, are not in one place. They are mixed in with and
scattered across 185 pages of text, hidden and diluted by useless
instructions for a myriad of superfluous functions you will never use.
sniped

You obviously don't have a clue about digital cameras or computers. I have
owned an Olympus D220 and D520 and think they are great. I gave the 220 to
my niece who still uses it today. I love my D520 2mp camera and will
probably upgrade some day to another Olympus.
Transferring images couldn't be easier, plug it in and windows XP picks it
up as another disk drive. Just drag and drop the pictures where "you" want
them and you don't have to rely on any additional software. Tag them all
and hit the "delete key" and they're erased, couldn't be easier.
Battery life is great. By the way, ever hear of rechargeable batteries? It
may be a relatively new concept to you but it sure saves you money in the
long run.
On screen display is very intuitive, no need to look through the manual.

Maybe you should stick to film.

wrote:

Olympus Digital camera product review

I bought an Olympus 340 digital camera a few years ago for my fledgling
web page company and have been rather disappointed ever since.

First of all, the thing cost almost $300 dollars at the time.

The instructions are wrong, hard to read, scattered across 185
different pages in 3 languages.

I hope you don't have to look through the other languages everytime to
figure out which in english?


The instructions for this camera are extremely poorly written. The main
functions that you will be using most, 1). How to disable the flash,
2). How to download your pictures from the camera, and 3). How to erase
old pictures, are not in one place. They are mixed in with and
scattered across 185 pages of text, hidden and diluted by useless
instructions for a myriad of superfluous functions you will never use.


You should say "I will never use". I can't imagine disabling the flash is
very complex and most people use a card reader rather than a camera cord.



Short battery life.

The battery life for this camera is about 30 minutes at best.

Most people figure out they need to buy rechargable batties before they
spend over $10 on disposables.
--

Stacey

In article , Stacey
wrote:

Short battery life.

The battery life for this camera is about 30 minutes at best.

Most people figure out they need to buy rechargable batties before they
spend over $10 on disposables.

In this case a few years

--
*But what if I'm a figment of MY imagination?

Bob
in Carmel, CA