WHAT'S HOT: The Camedia C-2100 Ultra Zoom offers two big field advantages over other digital cameras: extra-long battery life and a 10X optical zoom lens. The C-2100's four rechargeable AA nickel-metal batteries proved very durable, lasting 2.7 hours (231 shots) in our tests. A $200 price drop helps it climb up the chart.

As one of the few 10X digital cameras around, the C-2100 gives nature and close-up photographers a welcome edge. And by taking advantage of the camera's 2.7X digital zooming capability, you can enlarge faraway subjects up to 27 times (although digital zooming makes the picture grainier). Despite its 3-inch-long lens barrel, the 1.2-pound C-2100 is relatively compact and easy to handle. Thanks to its large grip and electronic image stabilizer, we were able to snap sharp telephoto pictures one-handed.

WHAT'S NOT: Arcane nomenclature and Byzantine menus make using this camera harder than it should be. The C-2100 has a total of 12 possible combinations of resolution, compression, and file format that you can program into the four text labels ("SQ," "HQ," "SHQ," and "TIFF") displayed in the status LCD. That gives you a fair amount of flexibility, allowing you to switch quickly between the four combinations you use most often. But you also must remember what specific settings you entered for each text label. "SQ," for example, has six possible combinations while "TIFF" has four. ("HQ" and "SHQ" have one combination each.) You have to drill through so many menus, with choices branching off into confusingly highlighted boxes, that sometimes the only way to be absolutely certain of the settings is to view the picture information after you've taken a shot.

WHAT ELSE: In most other respects, the C-2100 is easy to use. Like its predecessors, it gives you one convenient lever to zoom in and out of both live and captured pictures. This design is a great time-saver, especially when you're replaying shots: You can view thumbnails nine to a screen, quickly enlarge one to full-screen, and then press the lever once more to magnify the image up to 300 percent.

Whether in aperture priority or shutter priority mode, changing the shutter speed or aperture is easy with a simple thumb pad. And if your tweaks will result in a shot too under- or overexposed, the camera warns you by displaying the settings in red. Among the C-2100's big bag of extras are special effects such as black-and-white and sepia tones, continuous focusing, and the ability to capture short movies (you can even attach an external microphone to get better audio).

The C-2100 produced test images that rated about average for this class of digital camera. Viewed on screen, they were quite good--color details were especially good with flash shots. Printed samples, on the other hand, were less pleasing. Although subtle colors were nicely reproduced, flash shots tended to be a bit overexposed, and natural-light photos seemed somewhat dark. We also noted some color banding and blurring on groups of fine lines.

The C-2100's 8MB SmartMedia card holds 82 lowest-quality pictures or one high-resolution TIFF. Olympus includes two CD-ROMs of software, including the company's own utility software for downloading and tweaking photos, as well as Adobe PhotoDeluxe 4.0.

BEST USE: A comfortable, flexible camera for digital photographers who take both wide-angle and fairly powerful telephoto shots.

SUMMARY

Olympus Camedia C-2100 Ultra Zoom 2.1 megapixels, 1600 by 1200 maximum resolution, 38 to 380mm focal range, f2.8 to f11 aperture range, shutter speed from 16 seconds to 1/800 second, self timer, optical and LCD viewfinders, USB and serial connections, video output, bundled 8MB SmartMedia card, four rechargeable AA NiMH batteries with external charger, 24 ounces with battery; Adobe PhotoDeluxe 4.0 software. One-year parts and labor warranty; toll-free support for 13 hours on weekdays. $699 888/553-4448 www.olympusamerica.com/digital