Olympus Camedia C-740

WHAT'S HOT: The C-740 is not the first digital camera to have a 10X optical zoom, but it is the first we've reviewed that's priced under $500. At its maximum focal length, the zoom is the 35mm equivalent of a 380mm telephoto lens--sufficient for sports, nature, and other outdoor shooting. This camera takes the kitchen-sink approach to exposure controls: In addition to a full-automatic mode, you can switch between six scene modes, aperture priority, shutter priority, a program mode, and full manual. It also has manual focus, though you'd be hard-pressed to find it unless you read the Acrobat-based reference manual. (A hint: Hold down the "OK" button for a few seconds.) The useful My Mode option (a feature that's not new to this model) lets you save up to four customized groupings of control settings--typically, different combinations that you use frequently.

The C-740's images earned the highest scores we've recorded to date among 3-megapixel cameras. Although most of the shots were a shade underexposed (dark), they had nice detail and solid, accurate, well-saturated colors. Our outdoor photo, taken on a bright, sunny day, showed almost no noise (visible speckling) in the completely blue sky, although the blue appeared a bit flat. The C-740 also captured shadow details that many digital cameras tend to miss. The one significant knock: The shot of our mannequin taken indoors with flash displayed slightly cadaverous skin tones. Most of our casual photos looked surprisingly sharp (for a 3-megapixel camera) and nicely exposed, except for an outdoor portrait with fill flash, in which our model's pale white skin was badly overexposed.

WHAT'S NOT: One way Olympus kept the price down on this camera was to leave out audio recording. If you are interested in movies, they will have to be silent and have a maximum resolution of 320 by 240. And the camera's documentation did not thrill us. Though the C-740 comes with a nice getting-started poster, the camera's multilanguage booklet covers the basic controls and functions while mentioning the more complex stuff only in passing. Olympus does include a full reference manual in the form of an Acrobat file, but it's not very easy to thumb through. Printed, the Acrobat file spanned over 200 single-sided pages.

Other gripes: About half the size of a postage stamp (or an SD Card), the XD-Picture Card media is easy to loose in your camera bag, and most media readers and kiosks don't yet support it. And because it's relatively new, XD-Picture Card media tends to be a bit more expensive than the more common types of media. Using the flash during close-up photography can be a problem--if you get within 5 inches of your subject, the long lens can cast a large shadow in the bottom-center of your shot.

WHAT ELSE: We found the C-740 generally easy to use. Though we usually prefer optical viewfinders for their clarity, the C-740's electronic eye-level viewfinder is bright, sharp (though not as sharp as optical versions), and eyewear friendly--the viewfinder has rubber shield that protects your glasses. It has one big advantage over most digital cameras' optical viewfinders: You can check out all of your exposure settings without having to look at the camera's LCD display.

A large dial on the top of the camera lets you switch quickly among the various exposure modes (including the six scene settings), and dedicated buttons let you turn on the self timer, macro mode, and flash settings. Beyond that, you're off to the menu system. Typical of recent Olympus cameras, when its menus are activated, you can use the four-way navigation buttons as shortcut keys (to jump to the resolution or white-balance settings, for instance). The menus are typically four layers deep, but they're generally well organized and easy to interpret. For example, though the My Mode option is hidden well down in the Setup menus, using it to save customized settings is a snap. The optical zoom works smoothly, but the camera seems slow to refocus.

Olympus addressed one complaint we've had with the company's previous cameras: The lens cap now attaches to the end of the lens, not the body. That lets you leave the camera on and use the cap to protect the lens between shots--especially useful in dusty conditions. Another improvement is the ability to edit video in the camera, albeit on a very simple level: You can trim unwanted scenes from movies. When playing back video, you can fast forward, reverse, or view it frame-by-frame. Like all Olympus digital cameras, this model comes with Camedia Master, a fairly robust application that lets you manage, share, print, and edit shots.

UPSHOT: A good choice for amateur outdoor photographers on a budget, because it has more advanced controls than is typical in a 3-megapixel model. If you want to make prints larger than 8 by 10 inches, consider the very similar 4-megapixel C-750 Ultra Zoom.