Customer Reviews

Olympus D-340R 1.2MP Digital Camera

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After reading every review we could find, we ventured for the first time into the digital photographic world purchasing the Olympus 340-R digital camera. We were definitely not disappointed.

After just a few days the camera accompanied us to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Seoul, S. Korea, while we nervously left our Canon SLR at home. The camera performed marvelously. We found the optional 16MB flash memory card more than adequate for our needs, as we easily downloaded photos each day into our laptop.

We were amazed at the quality of photos even in low light settings. We took shots at our conference including a multimedia presentation where surprisingly the projected image on the screen was readable! While staying in the countryside in a traditional Mongolian "ger" (tent), we shot an incredible photo of the predawn sky-- even the morning stars are clearly distinguishable!

Arriving home we were completely satisfied with the photos shot at the low resolution setting when printed out on our HP Deskjet 895 using an Epson photographic paper. I doubt that most people would be able to tell the difference between the prints and a standard developed snapshot. The enclosed Olympus and Adobe software is easy to use and functional for most home use. You will absolutely love the Quickstitch utility that simply creates oversized and panorama shots!

One of the only weaknesses we found a little frustrating was the variance between the optical viewfinder and the digital one. If you frame... say, a head and shoulders shot in the optical viewfinder, you will discover that digitally the camera sees a much broader area. Olympus should do a little better job calibrating the two viewfinders.

Apart from that, you will want to invest in the NiMH charger and at least 8 batteries-- shop around for the best price. Also, picking up a 3.5 inch floppy adapter for the flash memory card will be a big time saver. You simply pull out the flash memory card, slip it into the adapter, and then slide the floppy into any computer. You'll save time and frustration over having cords laying all around your table, plus a significant download time.

One last item-- Do you think a 16MB memory card will be too small for your needs? Olympus, through their website, is offering an inexpensive upgrade through the end of December that will allow the camera to use the new 32MB memory cards.

If it had an optical zoom lens, this camera would be perfect! But, it would also cost a lot more. The camera is nice and small, fits easily in a coat pocket so you can take it anywhere. Picture quality is great, a bit soft on landscapes but all digital cameras are, even the 2 megapixel ones don't really do landscapes that well. The macro shots from this camera look spectacular, and people shots are just great. They print out very nicely, too. The autofocus works very well, and the metering is excellent (you can adjust the exposure up and down 1 stop if you want, but so far I haven't found it necessary). Color saturation is great, and very accurate. You can't adjust the white balance manually, but fortunately the camera's automatic white balancing works extremely well. You have 4 options when taking pictures, SQ (standard quality), HQ (high quality), SHQ (super high quality) and SHQ uncompressed. SQ is 640x480, the rest are 1260x980, the only difference being the compression used. HQ uses the most compression, and SHQ uncompressed uses no compression at all (a nice feature that many cameras don't have -for those really detailed shots). I find HQ works just fine for most pictures, and I can get 73 of those on a 16MB card. The viewfinder is a bit small, but not hard to find, and it's quite clear. The LCD is good, even in the daylight. Controls are easy to learn and well laid out. It's easy to view your pictures on the LCD, and you can delete any one (or all of them) at the touch of a button. You can also protect any of them from being accidentally erased. There's a 3x feature that allows you to see a portion of the picture a 3 times the size, useful for determining how sharp it really is, or if you moved the cameral during the shot. The flash works very well for its size, and you can easily turn it off, set it for fill, or red-eye reduction. The panorama mode works great, even hand-held. I took some shots of a church with the steeple way, way up there, using the panorama feature, and when I assembled the shots later on the computer (it's an automatic process) the result was tremedous. You could not see the seams at all, even though I took the shots hand-held. Great stuff. The camera is pretty sturdy too. I dropped it from about 3 feet and (thankfully) it survived. The software is reasonably good, and I really like the little Camedia thumbnail viewer. Downloading from the camera is smooth, although a bit slow since it's serial. However, the FlashPath adapter works really nicely and is much, much faster. The camera uses batteries pretty quickly, but if you get some NIMH rechargeables you'll have no worries. Go to Thomas Distributors on the web, and buy the MAHA MHC-C204F charger and 8 NIMH batteries and you'll never run out. With the MAHA you can even recharge them in your car. Don't buy the Olympus NIMH charger, it only works with Olympus batteries (yes I tried it with some others and it got so hot it almost caught fire) and doesn't have the features of the MAHA (and it costs quite a bit more). By the way, the camera comes with a home version of PhotoDeluxe, which is an OK photo editor. Has the basics. But you'll probably want something else eventually. I recommend PhotoSuite II - really great for the price and very easy to use. Anyway, I guess I've rambled a bit, but bottom line I'm very happy with this camera. Going digital is so freeing - you can take as many shots as you want, no film costs, see exactly what you have before you walk away, and then put it all into your computer to play with.

This is my first digital camera and my very first camera forover $200. Overall, I'm happy with it - it's easy to carry andtakes great pictures. There's not a pause between pressing the button and the camera actually taking the picture, which is a problem with other digital cameras. Some things to keep in mind though:

1. Downloading from the camera to your computer is EXTREMELY slow through the Serial Cable. Buy the SMART DISK floppy. Basically, your memory card fits right into the floppy disk, and the floppy disk works just like any floppy. The only bad thing about the floppy is it takes two lithium batteries.

2. If you have a laptop, you probably want to buy the DDSMFLSAD Smart Media Adapter for PCMCIA slot. Does the same thing as the SMART DISK floppy, but obviously cheaper. Same downloading speed.

3. If you don't buy 1 or 2, then buy an AC adapter (which by the way, doesn't come with the camera). Your camera must be on to transfer the pictures to your computer. Again, extremely SLOW.

4. There isn't a protective covering for the LCD monitor, so buy a camera case. This case doesn't come with the camera. Costs around $20 at any store. Actually you can buy the Olympus 200-523 Accessory Kit which has the AC Adapter, 2 MB card, and camera case.

5. This camera comes with an 8 MB card which holds 36 HQ pictures or 18 SHQ pictures. I can't tell the difference between the two qualities. 8 MB is good enough. After taking about two days worth of pictures, I download them to my computer and erase the 8 MB card. I don't feel the need to have more or larger cards. But then again, if I traveled and didn't have access to my PC, then I would invest in a couple 32 MB card.

6. Camera doesn't have zoom. I took some pictures of my friends running a marathon, and it would've been great to have the zoom feature. I sometimes regret not buying the Olympus D-400 Zoom Digital Camera for $600. If you like taking close-up pictures without being near the object, then don't buy this camera.

So in summary, I actually spent an extra $200 bucks ($500 total) to make this purchase worthwhile.

This camera takes outstanding photos-both up close and at a distance! Plus, it comes with its own programs(on CD) which means it saves you money...unlike some of the cameras out there which still require you to buy more of their items just to view the photos. I do recommend anyone who buys this camera to also buy the adapter package, as batteries do NOT last long if you plan to use the LCD monitor(which I love-because you can see the WHOLE picture without closing either eye). Either way, this camera is well worth the money, and the different ways you can shoot a photo is a must for the beginner! Easy to use and upload photos.

Without question....buy the camera. Do what I did and check the reviews. Amazon's is slightly off mark. Most rank the D340R at the top of the "Under $300.00" class. 1280X960 TRUE megapixel resolution is hard to beat at $250.00 (what I paid) and the quality is just what others have said....1st rate!

Unlike Amazon's review, it IS a battery miser, second only to the HP C30 (1000 photos). The full motion LCD screen is the only credible drain and not using it will give you well over 700 shots on a set of AA's.

My camera came with an 8mb card. Amazon is incorrect in stating 8megs give you only 60 standard quality photos. It's 122 640x480 pictures. If you plan on doing a lot of picture posting or emailing, 640x480 size pictures don't overwhelm the servers out there. You get 36 HQ pictures (1280x960)...4x the file size of a standard quality pic. 18 SHQ pictures (1280x960 but with superb crispness and detail) fit on the card. What am I saying? You won't need to buy a spare card if you can hook up to the computer every few days or weekly at the most. I'll buy a couple extra cards for any long road trip!

A final comment on downloading. Serial cable connections are inherently slower than USB hookups. However, the Olympus D-340R's download time through it's serial connection is remarkably fast...a lot faster than HP's and Fuji's....about 5-7 secs per 640x480 pic.

I hope this helps. This camera truly is fantastic and I've become both a website buff and amateur photographer as a result. Happy New Year!

After going through Sony, HP's, and Kodak cameras, this one is definately the best. People that have problems with battery life are obviously keeping the LCD screen on alot. If you turn it on to take a picture, review it, then shut it off till you get to the next picture, it will last for days on hi-capacity Ni-Hi rechargable batteries. In my opinion, DON'T buy the AC adapter. If you are using hi-capacity rechargables, you will not kill the battery life by downloading pics into your computer. Once they are downloaded, turn the camera off. People make the mistake of editing their pictures on their computer and the camera is still left on. Referring to only downloading one picture at a time - use the software available from the Olympus website. The software that comes with the camera is junk. Their new software gives you more simplicity and control over what you download into your computer. In my opinion, this is the best camera around for the price. You will not be dissapointed.

I've had my Olympus D340-R camera since April of 1999 and I just can't say enough good things about it. I love it. It is the BEST camera that I've ever owned or used. It has so many functions and the software that comes with it is fabulous. You just can't take a bad picture with this camera. The ONLY downside is that it does use up batteries quite a bit so I've got an AC adapter for mine for when I use it indoors. Also when the camera malfunctioned (my fault, water got spilled on it) Olympus fixed it for free under warranty and had it back to me within two weeks working perfectly again. I have not ever had such a positive experience in dealing with a company before. Their warranty service was excellent and their products are even better.

Before I bought this camera, I never took pictures: the marginal cost of taking any given shot was too high, given the film purchase and developing. With a digital camera, this cost drops to ZERO - I can take all the pictures I want! In that respect, it's absolutely worth the $ that you'll spend on the camera, a case, NiMH batteries, and a charger. Contrary to many reviews, the camera DOES NOT eat batteries too quickly; I used it heavily for days before the meter showed any drain. The desirable missing feature is an optical zoom, but you can't expect one at this price. (Those of you not living on a college student's budget may want to post the extra $, though!) Pictures are amazingly clear and colorful, and download time is nothing to complain about. A great deal - GO BUY THIS CAMERA!

I just bought this camera based on the reviews here. I cant add much to the reviews above (The image quality and features on this thing are top notch) but I did want to let prospective buyers know that Olympus is now offering the camera with 4 NiMH batteries and a quick charger included. Nice to know the company takes consumer feedback seriously!

I have been using the D-340R for 3 months now, and it has performed beautifully. The pictures are clear and sharp, and the camera menu is intuitive.

The only problem that I have with it is that it takes a while to download the pictures to my computer. Because it uses a serial connection, downloading the full 8MB from the camera takes up to 10 minutes. Some other cameras have parallel or USB connections, but none can stack up to the quality of the D-340R.