Olympus's Camedia E-10: 4 Megapixels at Last

The first 4-megapixel camera arrives: the Camedia E-10 from Olympus. Digital shutterbugs should swoon at the quality--and the price.

Encased in black aluminum, this solidly built camera offers more features than a multiplex movie theater. The $1999 E-10 lets users manually adjust focus, zoom, aperture, and shutter speed, and adapt settings to different ambient light conditions, providing creative flexibility for serious amateurs and professional photographers. With 4 million pixels at its disposal, the camera captures handsomely crisp, uncompressed TIFF images at 2240 by 1680 pixels (its highest image-quality mode)--great for achieving sharp 8-by-10 prints. But at this setting the included 32MB SmartMedia card stores only two pictures.

Because the Camedia E-10 is a single-lens reflex (SLR) model, the picture you see through its optical viewfinder is exactly the image you capture--a feature that most sub-$1000 digital cameras lack.

The shipping copy I examined was dotted with control buttons, making it look complicated to use. But with practice, I found that changing settings such as flash mode and storage format with the buttons was easier than navigating through multiple menu layers on the tiny 1.8-inch LCD monitor. The E-10 accepts both SmartMedia and CompactFlash memory-card formats.

The camera can save photos at any of several compression levels (which gives you control over an image's size), but you must click through a few layers of menus on screen to change the setting. The E-10 also permits you to print directly from the camera to a printer. The Camedia runs on two bundled lithium-ion batteries, but I suggest that you invest in four optional NiMH rechargeable batteries and a recharger ($70 for the set from Olympus).

Transfer photos to your PC easily with the included Olympus Camedia Master 2.5 software and USB cable. You can edit images with the bundled Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE.

With so many flexible features, the Olympus Camedia E-10 is ideal for people who are serious about photography and can afford to splurge.

SUMMARY

Camedia E-10 PRO: More bells and whistles than a church full of referees. CON: Control buttons require some practice to master. VALUE: A long list of advanced features helps justify its high price. List price: $1999 Olympus 800/622-6372 www.olympus.com