Reviews
Olympus
C-60 Zoom
Quirky. Likable. 6-megapixel.
Some
camera companies seem to end up favoring one particular body design
over all others, with those designs ending up being the most liked
and most successful over time. With Olympus, this is the C-XXXX
series. But their compact models, such at the C-60 I am reviewing
here, have an air of oversimplification to them that make them
somewhat unsatisfying to anyone with pretensions to making interesting
photographic images. This body style and user interface is not
bad, exactly, just sort of dumbed-down for mass appeal. Whether
or not it appeals to you depends on just how mass-market you feel
your photographic needs are.
Resembling
nothing more than a super-sized version of their Stylus film and
digital cameras, the C-60 is done up in an attractive brushed
metal body with a solid feel to it. Corners and projections are
rounded and beveled to be pocket friendly, and controls are kept
to the bare minimum. There is considerable power under the hood,
but it is all buried in quirky menus and multi-icon buttons. You
can get used to accessing all this camera has to offer you, but
it is somewhat less intuitive than comparable models from other
camera makers.
Viewed as
a straight point-and-shoot digicam, the C÷60 has all the hallmarks
of a winner: a reasonably fast f2,8 3X (38mm-114mm equivalent)
zoom, a 4X ăseamlessä digital zoom option, bright daylight-readable
display, built-in lens cover/power switch, optical viewfinder,
320x240 15fps movie mode, decent battery life, effective scene
modes, multi-point metering and spot metering. On full-auto, you
can hand it over to anyone with a pulse, show them where the shutter
button is, and they will take a decent picture of you and your
latest Iraqi torture subject.
Going beyond
these desirable basics, Olympus has thrown in some pleasant surprises:
uncompressed TIFF files, a wireless remote, programmable ăMy Modeä
user settings, exposure autobracketing, and a smooth 64 ISO sensitivity
setting.
The
C-60 is Oly's first 6-megapixel model, using the latest CCD imager
that is found is several other cams of very recent vintage. As
I always like to remind readers of my reviews, image quality is
not determined solely by the number is pixels in the final file.
If the imager is very small (as this one is) and you pack too
many pixels on it, they bleed their voltage into each other and
create chromatic distortions sometime referred to as ăpurple fringing.ä
Did you see any other recent Mars surface images? That camera
has a one-megapixel imager but it is quite large. Each photosite
(the technical name for the pixel ăwellsä in the imager) holds
more information about the particular spot of reflected light
it is capturing. That's why digital SLR pro cameras are so big
and bulky; they're imagers are several times larger than the ones
used in consumer-cams. Larger optics are required to throw a circle
of light larger enough to strike all the photosites. In photography,
bigger is always better ÷ unless you have to carry the thing around
the zoo all day while your kids alternate between hanging all
over you and trying climb into the orangutan cage. The C-60 is
made for times like these.
With the obvious
aesthetic benefits of the sturdy all-metal body and perfectly
good image quality, you've got yourself a quirky but likable little
digicam. Just remember to read the manual to get all that you
paid for, since this camera hides many of its charms so as not
to scare off the technophobes at purchase time.
÷Edison
Carter
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