The Olympus D-380 a Low Budget with Quality Built-in!
Written: Aug 17 '02 (Updated Aug 30 '03)
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Pros: Nice Price! Good photo Quality!
Cons: No TV hookups! No Rechargeable Batteries included!
The Bottom Line: This is a nice budget point and shoot digital camera!
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Olympus Camedia D-380 Digital Camera |
The Olympus D-380 has a street price of only $199 giving you quality photos in a 2 Megapixel camera. This camera is made to fit into your pocket or a purse weighing in at only 6.7 ounces and the size of 4.8 inches wide by 2. 6 inches in height by 1.8 inches thick.
This camera is made to be a point and shoot camera. It will automatically focus for you when you press the shutter button down half way, if you push the button all the way, it will snap off a photo for you.
The neat feature of this little beauty is it has a built-in protective cover over the lens that slides to the side and at the same time turns on the camera. Sliding the cover back over the lens turns it off. The cover being built on the camera prevents you from loosing it compared to a pop of and on cover.
Another nice part is it comes with an 8MB SmartMedia Memory Card and it has 2MB of internal memory built-in to give a few photo shots of storage if needed.
Not only can you take beautiful photos, you can also take movies with the Olympus D-380.
~~~ Movies ~~~
The Olympus D-380 lets you take movies in two different modes at 15fps (frames per second) 320 x 240 HQ mode or 160 x 120 SQ mode.
The camera uses the QuickTime movie mode for recording and records up to 15 seconds at a time in the HQ mode and 60 seconds in the SQ mode.
The only drawback I see for the movies is there is no video out for viewing the movies or photos on your TV set, though you can view them on the camera and a computer.
~~~ Photos ~~~
The Olympus D-380 offers you a wide variety of photos to shoot from to give you a photo large enough to print as an 8 by 10 inch.
SHQ Mode 1600 x 1208-pixel images in the JPEG format.
HQ Mode 1600 x 1200-pixel images in the JPEG format.
SQ1 Mode 1024 x 768-pixel images in the JPEG format.
SQ2 Mode 640 x 480-pixel images in the JPEG format.
~~~ The View ~~~
For a low priced digital camera under $200 they offer you an Optical viewfinder and a color LCD for taking your photos.
Optical
The optical viewfinder is a real image viewfinder that covers the field of about 80%. Inside the viewfinder you can also see if the photo is in focus and if the flash is ready to be used.
LCD
The Olympus D-380 has a small but effective 1.5 inch color TFT LCD used for photo taking, movie taking, camera setup and photo & movie viewing.
~~~ The Lens ~~~
The only drawback here is it a fixed lens of 4.5mm. (35mm lens equivalent in 35mm photography) Though it does provide a digital zoom of 2.5X in the SHQ, HQ & SQ1 modes and a 5X in the SQ2 mode.
It is an all glass lens F/4.0 with 5-elements in 5-groups. You can adjust the Aperture at F/4.0 or F/8.0.
Focus for the lens is 24 inches to infinity and in the Macro mode you can get as close as 10 inches.
~~~ The Flash ~~~
The Olympus D-380 has a built-in flash with a range of 10 inches to 8.2 feet.
It has modes for Auto flash, Auto flash with red-eye Reduction, Fill-in Flash, Slow Shutter Synchronization Flash (1st curtain effect), Slow Shutter Synchronized Flash (1st curtain effect w/ red-eye reduction) and Flash Off.
Recycle time for the flash between photos is about 6 seconds.
~~~ Other Features ~~~
Shutter Speeds 1/2 second – 1/2000 second
Shutter Speed in Night Scene mode 1 second
DPOF (Digital Print Order Format)
Image Effects - Resize, Sepia, Black and White
Panorama - using Olympus brand SmartMedia
1.5 frames per second burst and up to 5 frames in the HQ mode
Exposure Compensation: +/- 2 steps EV by 1/2 steps
ISO - Auto (100 – 400 equivalent)
Self-timer 12 second delay
Connectors - DC Input, Auto-Connect USB
Date & Time Calendar
~~~ The Batteries ~~~
The camera comes with alkaline AA batteries that once they are used up they must be thrown away.
I recommend buying a Ni-MH charger and 8 Ni-MH rechargeable batteries. You only need 4 batteries to use the camera but this will give you a spare charged set on hand. Cost for 8 batteries and charger between $40 to 50.
~~~ Compatible with? ~~~
The Olympus D-380 is made for Windows 98 revision 2, ME, 2000 Pro and XP.
For the Macintosh - Mac OS 8.6 or better.
~~~ What you get! ~~~
The Olympus D-380 digital camera
A Wrist Strap
Batteries
8MB SmartMedia Memory Card
A USB cable
CD with software and drivers
Instruction manual, Software Guide and Registration.
~~~ My Test Results ~~~
Movies
The movies are rather small but remember this camera is a still photo camera so the movies are an extra feature added.
The 320 x 240 HQ mode is rather small on the computer but it produces a nice 15 second movie without any sound.
The 160 x 120 SQ mode is too small for me but it produces a longer movie of about 60 seconds and seems clearer because of the smaller size.
Movie shots need to be taken in well lighted areas.
Photo Color
The photo color is great especially in outdoor shots and well lighted indoor shots.
Sharpness
The photos seem to have pretty good clarity but when closely looking around the corners they seem to get a little distorted. Printing up the photo on a 4 x 6 inches print produced a flawless photo, printing the same photo on an 8 x 10 showed a slight distortion but it is hardly noticeable unless you look for it.
Night Shots
The Night shots outside are pretty good as long as the subject isn’t too far away and that there is some decent lighting around. The night shots do tend to produce a little more noticeable grain than the day time shots.
Outdoor Shots
About the best of all the shots taken, bright and colorful. In some instances the sun may be too bright, then you need to compensate with the Exposure Compensation to get your best results. Using the flash outdoors in the Auto mode also helps in producing great photos that are up close.
Flash Shots
The flash is alright, it just isn’t made for any distance shots. Under most flash shots within about 10 feet the photos turned out rather well.
Incandescent lighting is tough sometimes and I find the setting the camera on the incandescent whit balance setting helps. You may have to experiment with settings to get your best results.
Batteries
I was using the Ni-MH rechargeable batteries and did take 150 shots before recharging and it still had power to shoot a few more.
Use
The Olympus D-380 is about as easy as it comes to using and setting up to use with your computer.
You can make some minor adjustments to get the camera to your preference but then it is basically just point at the subject, hold the shutter button down half way for the camera to auto focus for you and then push the button all the way down to snap the photo.
The software and driver loaded without any problems on my computer using Windows ME and uploading the photos to the computer are automatic once I connect the USB cable to the camera and computer.
~~~ Overall ~~~
This is a camera that a lot of people will enjoy for the price, ease of use and photo quality.
This is a great camera for the first timer or the person on a budget wanting a good quality digital camera.
I do recommend buying the Ni-MH rechargeable batteries and a 64MB or 128MB SmartMedia card.
Thank You for reading my review!
~~~ Print your digital photos for 18 cents each; Click on Me to find out how! ~~~
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Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 179
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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surferdude7
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Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
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