Customer Reviews

Olympus C-5000 5MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This would be the perfect camera for most, if only it had a focus assist light. Noise if very high for indoor shots, epecially if you leave it on auto. This is a camera that requires you know alot about iso, focusing methods (such as spot focusing) and setting the contrast (this camera uses a contrast focusing system). The less light you have, the longer it takes to focus. Shutter lag is excellent for daytime, outdoor shots, and much slower with low to moderate light. Due to Olympus using a contract TTL system, adjusting the contrast to -1 really helps, as well as setting the metering to spot. Also setting the sharpness to -1 helps with noise. A flash is a must for indoor shots, provided you can get the camera to focus lock. A bigger xD card is a must...The 5060 is a much better camera, but costs $...more.

The picture quality of this camera is something to behold. I read of people saying the camera gives noisy pictures and all but they're probably using their camera with the settings at default. Set the sharpness to -2 and the aliasing and sharpening artifacts just disappear! You end up with rich and highly detailed pictures worthy of the 5MP tag. The colour that this camera gives is simply beautiful.

I have found the FL-20 flash to be a very good match as well. This small unit balances nicely with this camera and lends a lot more oomph to strobe lighting needs.

Yes, it's not a perfect camera: no low light focus beam (though the camera still focuses quite well in lowish light situations - you can also just switch to manual focus if you need and just guesstimate distance to subject); no histogram (I don't use it much anyway) and no sound with movies. But the goodies especially the picture quality outweighs the bads: Li-ion battery (very good battery life), good usable ISO range from 50, 80 ,160 (320 is as expectedly noisy), lightweight and small size, good manual exposure range (A/S), etc.

If you're after very high picture quality, pictures that have great detail (without that almost over smooth "Canon look") and colour, this is a terrific option for the money.

This is a great camera with a lot of features at a very reasonable price. The camera is very easy to use, has great battery life (I took 75 pictures over a week w/ flash on one charge), and produces excellent pictures. I don't know what the other reviewer is talking about with the colors. Maybe they should learn how to operate the camera or get their vision checked? The color looks perfect...better than a high quality film camera. The software that comes with the camera is adequate. My only concern before buying the c-5000 was with the xD memory format, which I had never used before. It has worked better than I had hoped. The camera writes to the card very quickly and the camera is able to hold over 200 images at the highest resolution on the extra 256mb card I purchased. Overall a great buy.

I did a lot of research before I decided on this camera. I was going to Europe and I wanted Digital, but I'm a broke student. I wanted something that would be good for awhile, but wouldn't put me completely in debt. Technically, I am still paying this off, but it was totally worth it.

Great quality. I can take a picture, zoom in on it, and still blow it up to 8 x 10 photo quality. Plus, it's really easy to use. I mean, it has all the little special features if you want them (and I wanted them), but if you don't, it's just point and shoot. Then, plug in the attached cord to your computer, click the copy photos button, and you're ready to print or email or whatever. And it doesn't have that "waiting" problem that you'll get with a lot of digital cameras. It has all the positives of a 35mm and all the positives of a digital. I am completely satisfied with my choice.

If you're willing to spend a bit more, I'd still recommend staying with this Olympus series. It's the best you can get.

I am very impressed with the high quality of pictures the camera produces. It captures great detail and the photos look very good in print 5x7 as well as on the screen.

Positives:
Great price for 5 mpx
Controls are easy;
operates like a point and shoot;
lightweight;
many shooting modes;
panaroma mode - excellent for 180 deg views of landscapes

Negatives:
a. Boot up time : about 45 secs to 1 min
b. Battery
1. Propriety size battery : expensive to replace ($50 US)
2. Life of battery : Not in line with my expectations
3. Battery life remaining indicator: Not accurate, misleading.Jumps rapidly from full charge to no charge.
c. Focusing close subjects a problem sometimes

Overall its a great camera with these small problems.

This is a great camera that is easy to use yet has advanced features if you want them. The controls are very intuitive, and the display screen is excellent. I can't quite understand the negative reviews because I haven't had any problems. The pictures are crystal clear with great color, even when displayed on a 32-inch TV. Great buy for a 5 MP camera ranked by PCWorld in the top 10 of advanced digital cameras.

this is my second digital camera. my first is a refurbished 3 megapixel from Canon that was great at taking the instant snapshot. i had no exposure problems for that one for some reason. this Olympus on the other hand is great after some practice.

In my case, I got this to shoot my school portfolio shots. i'm a graphic design student with okay photography skills but not a pro. So I required a bit of patience for composition and lighting. Its good enough to print big tabloid sizes on an epson at 200dpi (heavyweight matte) at the maximum tiff file size. The colors are great especially after you fight to get the right exposure at non-optimal conditions. But it took me like 1000 shots to get over the muddy exposures. (crash course in photography - lighting is king)

On a sunny day its great. I like the manual controls though you can't save the settings completely and have to reprogram the thing. With the timer and tripod, the slow shutter speeds help for dark to night shots. I tried the nighttime mode and it was remarkable compared to say playing around with a manual film camera for the first time. the flash is adjustable and having a hot shoe helps for the glamour shots.

Scrolling through all the menus and submenus are okay. I use a Canon G5 at work and its numerous buttons at first is intimidating but seems quicker access than this Olympus. Yet the scrolling on the C5000 is okay to use unless you are freaking out and rushing. Its better than the Canon in that it seems more logical as I didn't really study the manual in detail.

Back to the controls, it has some good adjustable controls to hot rod your shots. I just wish it could stop down (or is it up?) to smaller aperature than F/8. The zoom is average range. But for some reason the super macro has great shots - probably because all the light is up close - compared to regular shots.

Sometimes when you shoot dark shots there is some noise and speckles in the image dark areas even when you use noise reduction. And there is a somewhat vignette phenomena as well.

Other good things about the camera: the various white balance controls helps alot; the camera starts fast. the controls are fast.

Not so good things: transferring files is not so fast as the Canon G5 and its software. the included 16mb Xd card is a joke. waiting for the camera to reload after the 15 mb tiff file is saved is tedious. you have to have a spare proprietary Olympus battery if you get carried away and run out of juice. no included hand strap.

I've had this camera for a few days now and it is awesome. It takes great pictures and has a lot of options. I don't have a detailed review since I've only owned the camera for a short period of time but when I was trying to decide which camera to purchase some of the reviews for this camera said it took poor indoor pictures...this is not true. I've only taken pictures indoor and the quality is above most cameras.

I bought this camera almost a year ago. I have used it constantly since. They battery has a great life... I don't have to charge it very often. It's relatively simple to use and master. I love the black and white setting. Overall, this camera takes excellent pictures that look like studio quality.
I'm planning on buy the underwater housing (PT-019) before our next vacation.

I was initially attracted to the Olympux C-5000 by the terrific Amazon price - $310 or so. This was my first venture into digital photography: I wanted to migrate from loyal old familiar 35m equipment but at 5MP. and when the price was right. Only after purchasing the camera in May did I read some of the reviews and the negative comments alarmed me. Had I bought a discontinued dud? Absolutely not. It's a superb camera. Very ergonomic, easy to use and wonderful picture quality. The automatic setting is so reliable that I've been lazy so far in exploring the range of manual options but look forward to it. A very sophisticated little machine.