Olympus Camedia D-380 2MP Digital Camera Electronics

Average Rating:

What you get for your money is a camera which is aestetically pleasing as well as functionaly impressive as well. It's not too bulky, around 5" wide and sub 7 ounces in weight, with a sliding lens protector to make transportation a breeze, a wrist strap, 8MB Smart Media memory card (although it takes upto 128MB) as well as 1MB onboard memory, USB connector, built in flash and a 1.5" digital viewfinder at the back for live preview or viewing of your snapped images...a good size for a small camera.

The camera requires 4AA batteries to operate and unlike the previous model I owned uses some kind of battery saving technology to give you more operational time before run down. It still gobbles the things like nobody's business though if you use the viewfinder at the back too often so you are best advised to buy a set or two of rechargable batteries for this camera...but it is MUCH better than the previous models.

When it comes to using the camera you'll find it a doddle. I'm not going to run through each and every thing it does or I'll bore the pants off you, ...[but] if you want a list of specs, then visit the Olympus website. What I will say is that it is dead easy to use. The menu system is accessed through 4 buttons on the back, and is very intuitive - you'll have no problem with using this unlike with some others. If you've ever used an Olympus camera around this price range before in the last couple of years then you'll be more than familiar with the set up because it doesn't seem to have changed much in this respect.

The most important thing of all though is the quality of the pictures and I have to say that once again Olympus has come up trumps with this camera. Colour saturation is generally excellent and whilst bright sunlight and very murky conditions give you somewhat under/over-exposed results at times, it is otherwise faultless for a 2.0 megapixel camera. There are various image manipulation options such as switching to black and whire/sepia tones built into the camera as well and an option to record video footage as Quicktime images which is great as well.

The only thing which is missing for the average user (no, it's not a pro choice obviously) is a zoom lens. You can digitally zoom if you so wish, but I find a slight jagged edge appearing on the images if you do, so it's not optimal.

Overall, for the price you can't fault it and I'd be happy to recommend it to anybody in the market for a 2.0 Megapixel digital camera without any qualms that they would be disappointed in their purchase. If you want professional quality images then look elsewhere, but for the general user this is a great purchase.

Upon opening the box, I was pleased to find an attractive, sturdily constructed camera. Though there's nothing cheap-looking about it (it's all classy looking metallic surfaces), it is very lightweight and comfortable in my hand. The lens cover slides with precision and covers the lens securely (many of the cameras in this price range don't have an integrated lens cover). The wrist strap attaches easily. The covers for the battery compartment, memory card, and USB and AC adapters are well designed and look as if they will last a long time. This camera is manufactured in Japan.

It took only about a minute, after scanning the "Quick Start" guide, to insert the included batteries and SmartMedia memory card and start taking pictures. The very first picture I took was a keeper; I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality. I handed the camera to my 6-year-old son, who snapped off a shot of my daughter and me, which I then printed on glossy photo paper. It looks so nice that I'm actually going to frame it and hang it on the wall. I have since taken pictures at all the different resolutions, and all look great when viewed on the computer. I have settled on the 1024 x 768 setting as my "standard", since it matches the resolution of my monitor, and makes for reasonable file sizes (around 180 KB per photo). 640 x 480 works great for e-mail, and 1600 x 1200 turns out beautiful results for printing, or those special occasion "keepsakes". Even the QuickTime movie mode does a decent job, certainly much better than those grainy webcam captures.

There is a 5X digital zoom (no optical). I detect a little graininess when using it, but for the money, it's fine and it's simple to use.

I am running Windows 2000 Pro, and setup for transferring files to the computer couldn't have been easier. Simply plug the USB cable into the camera, then into the computer. That's it! Open My Computer and you'll find a new removable storage drive. From there it's a simple matter of dragging and dropping files to wherever you want to store them. You can delete the files from the SmartMedia card from your computer, which is easier than doing it with the camera. The included Camedia software looked fun, but I haven't had a need to use it yet, so I can't comment on its functionality.

I received a free 32 MB Viking SmartMedia card from Amazon with this camera. Together with the 8 MB card in the box with the camera, this is enough storage for roughly 200 photos at 1024 x 768. The only thing I needed to buy to complete my setup was a carrying case.

I highly recommend this camera to anyone looking to enter the world of digital photography. It is stylish, extremely easy to use, very well constructed, takes excellent pictures, and is an unbeatable value!