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Olympus Camedia C-720 Ultra Zoom review: Olympus Camedia C-720 Ultra Zoom
Olympus Camedia C-720 Ultra Zoom
Billed as the world's smallest 3-megapixel, 8X optical zoom digital camera, the Olympus Camedia C-720 Ultra Zoom lets advanced amateur shooters get in close to the action without lugging around expensive, weighty 35mm lenses. This camera makes a worthwhile addition to the outdoorsperson's or sightseer's backpack--as long that shooter is willing to live with somewhat inconsistent image quality.
The C-720 inherits the look and feel of its predecessor, the 2-megapixel, 10X zoom C-700. The design is smart, solid, and well thought out. At 13.7 ounces with the batteries and the media installed, the C-720 feels lightweight for a model with such a large optical-zoom range. While it lacks an image-stabilization system, its comfortable ergonomics and weight keep camera shake to a minimum.
Buttons are well placed, and you can access commonly used functions such as flash settings, exposure compensation, spot metering, autoexposure lock, macro mode, and continuous-shooting modes without scrolling through the LCD menu system. The menu system itself is thoughtfully organized to make important features easily accessible. The command dial handles a number of shooting modes, including a customizable setting known heartwarmingly as My Mode.
Olympus outfitted the C-720 with a sensible array of desirable features, providing a selection of exposure modes from fully manual to automatic. This digicam also offers useful manual overrides such as contrast and sharpness adjustments. Unfortunately, there are a couple of notable omissions, such as saturation adjustments and, surprisingly, a manual white-balance function. On the other hand, you get a silent-video-clip mode, three preset scene modes, and a continuous-shooting mode that refocuses for each shot in the series. There's also a new feature called 2-in-1, which lets you shoot two exposures and save them in one frame side by side, should you have a hankering to do so.
Of course, the C-720's main attraction is its ultrazoom, which provides the 35mm camera equivalent of a 40mm-to-320mm lens in only a small fraction of the space usually required.
Olympus markets the C-720 as the perfect pick for shooting sporting events, wildlife, and other such active or faraway subjects. However, although the C-720 does succeed in bringing you close to the action, it isn't especially quick at capturing it.
The autofocus isn't exactly fast on its feet, and there is a brief but noticeable shutter lag. If you're trying to capture fast-moving subjects, you'll probably get frustrated pretty quickly. The camera is much better suited for wildlife shooting than for sports photography. An electronic viewfinder on the C-720 takes the place of an optical one, obviating the parallax problems that can lead to poor composition in close-range shots. However, the absence of image stabilization works with the somewhat jumpy viewfinder image to make it difficult to frame a level shot when you're shooting at the telephoto end of the zoom.
There is a lot to like about the C-720's image quality. The camera produces rich, well-saturated color and Olympus's Digital ESP metering system is accurate. Our test images generally exhibited a good dynamic range, capturing ample detail in both shadows and highlights. When a photograph shot with this camera is good, it's very good. However, the C-720's output is also subject to some annoying problems. The saturation of greens appears to be particularly high and can get out of hand in scenes with a lot of green in the background, with areas of the hue occasionally bleeding into subjects' skin tones.
Chromatic aberration is also a significant problem; purple fringing occurred unusually frequently and noticeably around objects with bright backgrounds. A number of our photos revealed significantly more noise than we'd have expected, even in open-shade situations. We recommend setting the light sensitivity at ISO 100 whenever possible.
Despite its large optical-zoom range, the C-720 won't weigh you down. |
You won't waste time scrolling through the C-720's LCD menu system since most of the commonly used features are easily accessible from well-placed buttons. |
Among the C-720's passel of features, you'll find a silent-video-clip mode, three preset scene modes, and a continuous-shooting mode that refocuses for each shot in the series. | Included accessories |
Olympus markets the C-720 as the perfect pick for shooting sporting events, wildlife, and other such active or faraway subjects. However, although the C-720 does succeed in bringing you close to the action, it isn't especially quick at capturing it.
Input/output ports |
There is a lot to like about the C-720's image quality. The camera produces rich, well-saturated color and Olympus's Digital ESP metering system is accurate. Our test images generally exhibited a good dynamic range, capturing ample detail in both shadows and highlights. When a photograph shot with this camera is good, it's very good. However, the C-720's output is also subject to some annoying problems. The saturation of greens appears to be particularly high and can get out of hand in scenes with a lot of green in the background, with areas of the hue occasionally bleeding into subjects' skin tones.
Olympus's Digital ESP metering system is right on the money. |
Chromatic aberration is also a significant problem; purple fringing occurred unusually frequently and noticeably around objects with bright backgrounds. A number of our photos revealed significantly more noise than we'd have expected, even in open-shade situations. We recommend setting the light sensitivity at ISO 100 whenever possible.
Watch for purple fringing when shooting objects against bright backgrounds. |
Score Breakdown
Design 8Features 7Performance 6Image quality 7