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| Front | Front (flash open) | Back |
| (Shots taken with the C-3040 Zoom) | ||
This review is one of a series of articles, of which the main feature is Choosing a Digital Camera. You may jump to one of the other related articles by using the following links:
Whilst the following review concerns one particular camera, the main feature compares all three cameras, includes a large specification table listing the features of all three models, and discusses wider aspects of digital photography.|
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| Front | Front (flash open) | Back |
| (Shots taken with the C-3040 Zoom) | ||
The C-2100 Ultra Zoom is a digital SLR camera with the largest zoom lens that Olympus currently offers. It is a 2.1 Megapixel device, with a maximum resolution of 1600×1200 pixels. Previous Olympus SLR cameras had only a 3× zoom, so this model represents a major improvement.
The very large lens does make the body of the camera rather bulky, but it still manages to be surprisingly ergonomic to hold and use. A few more primary-function buttons are provided on the camera's body than is the case with the more compact models, but as usual the majority of the camera's functions are accessed through an on-screen menu which is well designed and easy to use.
In use, this camera is a real delight. Its motorised 10× zoom is swift and almost silent, and can optionally be used in combination with an additional digital zoom of up to 2.7×.
A camera with this length of zoom is rather susceptible to taking blurry images at the extremes of the zoom, but a couple of clever electronic features are built in to compensate for such problems. First of all, a Full-time AF function attempts to keep the camera's auto-focus working constantly, rather than just when you half-press the shutter. Secondly, a Stabilisation system tries very hard to keep the image steady even if the camera is being wobbled slightly. I found that this worked unexpectedly well, and it was surprisingly difficult to take a blurry picture, even at full zoom. Of course, excessive movement can still cause a blurred image, but the stabilisation system does indeed do a very good job of avoiding most problems of this nature.
A movie mode is available on the camera, and it can, of course, benefit from the large zoom. A built-in or external microphone can also be used to add audio captions to still pictures, which allows you to create useful reminders to yourself about what a particular image actually is, or where it was taken!
Unusually, this camera allows you to rotate images on its memory card by 90°, clockwise or anti-clockwise, to make both portrait and landscape images appear upright. This is useful, and avoids the need for separate image processing on the computer later.
As with most recent Olympus digital cameras, the C-2100 Ultra Zoom offers a very wide range of photographic options which allow the same kind of control over your shots as you would find on one of the more expensive film-based cameras. All the usual photographers' options are there, plus several more unusual ones; a comprehensive camera specification table appears at the end of the main article.
As for the quality, well, 2.1 Megapixel cameras don't come any better than this. The images that this camera takes are wonderfully sharp and clear with perfect colour tone, right across the range of the 10× zoom.
This camera is now around eighteen months old. Depending on your point of view, that means either that it is now an excellent time to buy it (as it has recently dropped to around half its original launch price) or that it's the wrong time to buy it because it will soon be superseded by something better.
A superior future model is probably most likely to offer a higher resolution than 2.1 Megapixels, rather than any other significant extra features. So, if know that you'll be happy with the 2.1 Megapixel resolution, then this is definitely the ideal camera to buy. It really is absolutely superb; 10 out of 10!
[The movie is not provided in this Online edition. The following image is a four-frame animated GIF showing the extremes of the C-2100 Ultra Zoom's 10× zoom lens.]
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| No zoom | 10× zoom |
Next, a car number plate test. In the first image, look at the right-most of the three parked cars. The number plate of this car was the subject of the second image. Here, both optical and digital zooms have been used to pick out the lettering with remarkable clarity; even the word 'ROVER' on the badge above the number plate is almost discernible. Again, both pictures were of course shot from exactly the same position.
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| No zoom | 27× zoom |
Finally, we come back to the Ross-on-Wye painting used in the movie above. Below is a series of four static frames (taken at the same time as the movie, and from the same position). Unlike the movie, though, the camera's digital zoom facility has been used to produce the final frame, and represents the claimed 27× maximum zoom of the camera (10× optical combined with 2.7× digital). Although this image is merely a processed version of the data provided by the 10× optical zoom, the result is extremely impressive.
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| No zoom | Mid-range zoom |
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| 10× zoom |
27× zoom (Optical & digital) |
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Thanks to Photodesk Ltd for providing a C-2100 Ultra Zoom for review
The photographs supplied with this article are copyright © Richard G. Hallas