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423 of 425 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The 450Z could be the best digital camera for the money., November 2, 1999
I started out thinking I was still a year away from affording a new digital camera with the features I wanted. I decided to hold out for a zoom lens and at least 1024 x 768 resolution, or wait. After a lot of research, I knew I wanted an Olympus, because of their excellent optics and their camera-first, digital-device-second approach, and because my Olympus 35mm point-and-shoot had served me well.I thought my best deal would be on a used or discontinued model; however, because the original price of the 500L, 600L, and 400Z had been so high (in the $800-1200 range), the asking prices for these had not come down as much as I'd hoped, and what I had to be willing to pay had crept up as I shopped. When I saw what the 450Z was going for, I whipped out my credit card. Now that I've played around with it for a few weeks, I can't imagine there's a better digital camera for the money right now. I've compared with a couple of friends that have Nikon CoolPix cameras, and I suppose there's something that's better about them, but I can't honestly tell you what that would be, and the Nikon is twice the money! The 450Z is an improved version of the well-received 400Z, but at a radically lower street price. Some of this is due to the packaging -- the 450Z leaves out the FlashPath floppy adapter (typically $70-90 alone) that was standard in the 400Z -- but clearly the manufacturing costs are coming down rapidly. This camera performs incredibly well on the bottom-line measurement: It takes stunningly detailed and accurate pictures under a wide variety of conditions. We've gotten used to accepting less than perfection for pictures taken in other than bright sunlight at normal distances. The 450Z adds several categories of picture-taking where you can now get predictable results: Flash, macro (including with flash), indoor lighting, low light, etc. There are just enough features to make the camera useful over the range of conditions, but not so many as to intimidate the snap-shooter. Because of the intelligence of the autofocus, exposure control, and white balance, it is still a great point-and-shoot camera. Many features are related to getting the picture right at the right resolution, such as spot metering, exposure override, mode (resolution), different flash modes, macro, etc. Other features are related to viewing and managing the pictures you've taken. You can plug the camera into a VCR or TV monitor (RCA video jack) and give a quick slideshow of what's in memory. You can get around the small size of the LCD display (and this is one of the better ones) by zooming in on one segment (out of a 3 x 3 grid) of an image, to make sure the detail is there. One other feature that other reviewers have found important: The 450Z will store images uncompressed, if you choose (the file size is huge); most other cameras up to this point perform at least some compression, even on high-quality settings. The only thing I couldn't do well -- and this may just take some practice -- is action shots. All digital cameras have some lag between the time you decide to pull the trigger and the time the image is committed to memory, and this takes some getting used to, but the 450Z is quicker in this respect than its earlier counterparts. One significant feature is the "burst mode", which allows you to keep capturing images (about 1-2 a second) as long as the shutter button is pressed, and until the buffer fills up (seems to be about 6-10 images). Most of us get into digital because of the cost and overhead of dealing with film and processing, only to have to scan prints or pay extra to the processor for digital images from film. Depending on resolution, you can get up to 122 images onto the standard 8MB memory card before unloading, and that's very liberating -- no more agonizing over whether to take another shot! However, once you play around with it a while, the mind starts to boggle at the possibilities, and film cameras seem like Stone-Age technology (especially since we are approaching the resolution of film with the million-plus pixels you can store in an image now). The 450Z is a milestone in the improvement of digital cameras, a quantum leap in value vs. features and quality, even compared to other Olympus cameras. You won't believe how easy it is to get breath-taking digital photos. Get one!
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