Customer Reviews

Olympus FE-310 8MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom (Silver)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I have had the Olympus FE-310 camera for about one month. The camera takes great pictures and is easy to operate. This camera seems pretty good overall. There are a few things that I wish I had known before I made this purchase however.

1. The 2 AA batteries do not last very long. The digital screen is easy to see, but drains the batteries far too quickly. You cannot turn off the digital screen without turning the camera off. Be aware that you may need one or more battery changes per day if you are shooting a moderate amount of pictures. This camera has frozen up twice because it needed a battery change immediately following my attempt to take a picture. When I started the shot the battery indicator showed full and then it failed to record the photo because the battery was dead. There is no midpoint on the battery indicator. I don't know if I got a bad camera or if everyone has the same problem.

2. This has been mentioned by another user but it is worth noting, this camera reverts to default settings each time it is turned on. There is no way to save your personal preferences. This is a big deal! Imagine being at an event where you need to shoot a picture once every minute or so with an adjusted setting. As I have said, leaving the camera on would nearly guarantee a battery change within an hour. Now each time you turn the camera back on you find yourself adjusting for flash off or whatever special setting you need while your photo opportunity escapes! Had I known about this weakness I would have purchased another camera.

3. The shutter button and zoom control are located in the same spot. It is a bit tricky to operate effectively but it can be done with some practice.

All things considered this would be a great camera if I didn't use it so often. I like it enough to keep it, but use caution if this camera is for work or regular moderate use.

Olympus FE-310 8MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom (Black)This camera is one of the best digital cameras I have ever used. It takes easy perfect Photos, and what you see is what you get. It has a menu that even a novice could use. It is really that easy. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who,in the past was afraid. A great product!

Well I did a lot of homework before I bought this camera. I wanted AA batteries (I travel a lot with no outlets), at least a 5X zoom and some sort of image stabilization. The 2 gig card gives over 400 pics on the highest resolution so no worrys about downloading often on the go. The image stabilization is not active, what it does is ups your shutter speed so it's not really image stabilized. Battery life is good not great probably because of the large LCD on the back of the camera. A viewfinder would have been nice. All and all I doubt you could find a better camera for the amount of money. Pictures are great, 5X zoom is nice, optical zoom is great, digital zoom has only limited use because it sacrifices quality, but it does zoom way in. A nice feature is that if you wonder about how to set the camera there is a guide mode and a scene mode that will make it very easy for you.

This is a great little camera and has excellent features. Others have talked about the features so I will not expand on those, but I do want to add my voice to the growing chorus of people who have been suckered by Olympus to by this battery sucker.

The only batter you may have luck with is the Panasonic Industrial battery that it comes with, and can be purchased for a pretty penny online.

Every ready batterys? Camera won't work at all. Duracell? I get around 10 pictures on each set. Only the panasonic industrials work "ok".

I complained to Olympus and they denied any issue, only saying I needed to use a good enough AA. Buzz off to them! It should work with any AA, not special AA's!

I am now waiting for the class action lawsuit so I can get my money back as the store I bought this at won't take it back anymore. - its older than 1 month.

I had read that the Olympus 2 Master disc was difficult to install, but, that is not true. It went in like a champ, and gives you everything you'd want to create your photos with. The Macro and Super Macro work excellent! The sntishake mechanism keep down alot of otherwise blurry shots. I haven't yet tried the panorama feature, but everything is explained clearly in the book, and just taking your camera and going thru step-by-step, you will see how easy it is to use!! It gives you all the info on the screen that you need, to take beautiful pictures. You can almost count individual hair strands on close-ups, and scenery pictures are gorgeous. You can't go wrong with this camera. I'm really glad I got it!!

This is my 2nd Olympus digital. I wanted something I could slip in a pocket, rather than hang around my neck all day. It's not too small for my sausage fingers, all I need to take fast, easy photos. The 310 is hard on batteries, I keep 2 sets of re-chargeables spare,but would carry more on a big trip. That is my only real criticism.

Since I wrote this review 4 months back I have got a little more skilled and a little less enthusiastic for the FE-310. As other reviewers have said the camera settings revert to the default on switching off which can be exasperating at times. I should have brought a model with view finder too, bright sunlight on the screen makes it difficult to see your subject. Flashlight shots are only any good if one is fairly close in, but the worst feature is battery failure. Not all re-chargeable NIMH batteries are compatible, be sure to stick with top name brands. Camera still takes nice pics but I reckon now, in hindsight, 3 stars would be more like it.

This is an excellent camera but it uses AA batteries instead of the LI-42B like the product description says... so I was upset when I payed $40 for a battery that I couldn't use!!!

I also bought this camera and experienced poor battery life. After reading the reviews I was ready to box it up and ship it back. At the last minute I decided to give it another try and work the batterys. I bought 2 each of every battery that said digital camera. I also measured the short circuit current of each type of battery. What I found is this camera (and every camera that uses AA's) needs high current NOT high capacity.The flash is essentially a dead short. When the engineers built the bigger zoom (5X) they made the flash bigger. The bigger flash it put a hugh load on the batterys. The best batterys that I found were the Hybrios (new style NiMh that holds it charge for a year another benefit). The Sony high current also worked. When I tested it with fresh charged batterys I gave up after 80 consecutive forced flashs in a row and I got tired of testing. Previously I could get about ten flashes before the batterys failed. This included alkaline as they do not like being shorted. So bottom line is you need about 8 amps short circuit current to make the camera live. Six amps short circuit does not work and the age of the cells counts for a lot. I have tried these cells in a DSLR with the same results they last a long time.

This camera has a problem using NiMH batteries!
Because of the lower cell voltage the camera keeps indicating low battery, and stops turning on even with charged NiMH batteries.
The instruction manual states the camera will operate on NiMH batteries but from my experience it clearly won't.

DID NOT LIKE THIS CAMERA. HAD A FEW PROBLEMS WITH IT. MOSTLY IT WOULD KILL BATTERIES VERY FAST(OR IT WOULD SAY BATTERIES EMPTY).IF YOU TOOK THE BATTERIES OUT AND PUT THEM BACK IT WOULD BE ALRIGHT FOR A WHILE BUT THEN IT WOULD START AGAIN. IT TOOK GREAT PIC'S BUT I WAS ALWAYS HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE BATTERIES. I TRIED A FEW DIFFRENT TYPES BUT NOTHING SEEM TO WORK. I SENT THE CAMERA BACK AND THEY SENT ME A REPLACEMENT AND THAT ONE HAD THE SAME PROBLEMS. DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA.