The cam, as you can see is jam packed full of special features. Some you may find useful and some are just like-- what will I need this for. Luckily the camera comes with a handy booklet explaining in detail all of them :)
Upon opening I was overjoyed with the overall appearance and weight and design of the product. The buttons fit lovely in your hands and are easy to use. Nothing is stiff and nothing is too loose. The buttons are perfect in my opinion.
To take pictures just press the button. That is about the only feature I ever use. The macro shots work well though. They can take fairly close up good quality pictures of thing. Very useful for shooting individual items to put up pictures on the net for example.
The picture quality is superb. With 6MP shooting at 2816 x 2112 you end up with a very large, yet super high quality picture. If you have an HD TV, that will display them perfectly. However if you are just doing normal shots, try a lower setting as that quickly will fill up the memory.
Speaking of memory, you are unfortunately going to have to buy a memory card
for this thing. You can get a 2GB card off of Amazon.co.uk or Ebuyer.com for about 30£ I would say. I went with a 1GB but now seeing would recommend a 2GB if you are planning on taking lots of photos. IT TAKES XD CARDS!
The camera can take still photos in several formats. These are JPEG, EXIF 2.21, PIM II, DPS and DPOF. I am going to recommend using JPEG as it is most commonly recognized and offers good quality. Using video capture the camera does ok as well. The camera records in QuickTime (pretty much like every Olympus I think) at two settings. High is 320x240 and 15FPS and low is 160 x 120, 15fps. This offers a good frame rate for this camera. It has smooth clear(ish) playback as long as you do not oversize the playback size.
The pictures have had no glare on them that I have taken. There is an auto flash feature which makes it easy for just an average camera user. It chooses the right lighting setting making the best picture for you. I did not like having to play around with light setting and exposure time on my old fashioned camera- hooray for digital :).
A cool feature of this camera is its scene modes. You can take a picture which makes it appear you are at the scene. Scenes include fireworks and self portraits. They look very good and are pretty interesting to show to relatives.
The screen for this is a good size. It is 2.5 inched and has 154,000 pixels showing a crisp clear picture for you to preview. I dropped the camera once and the screen was fine so quite durable I would say.
The camera is connected to the PC via a USB cable. It opens with the software included with teh camera or you cna access it via MY Computer as a storage device for quick removal of pictures.
The camera comes with 2 AA batteries so you can play as soon as your receive :). It takes two as you can tell. Rechargeable batteries will also work. They are costly and have less life than single use batteries- but the benefit they can be reused so up to you. The battery life can do quite a lot of pictures I thought. Very useful if you are on a days outing and don't have to carry around loads of spares. Just try to keep the screen off to conserve power.
Inside the box after purchase here is what you get: Camera Strap Two AA batteries USB cable Video cable Instruction Manuals Warranty card Software CD-ROM (Olympus Master)
Conclusion =======
This camera is perfect for me and the family when we go places. It is very good for taking pictures of stuff for the internet also. The only downside is the very small internal storage. Other than that battery life is good and everything else is easy to use. The manual it includes is simple to understand. The camera is very easy to setup on the pc and is great for a beginner with lots of potential. RECOMMENDED!!
You can purchase this product off of Amazon for only £82.50 which is a steal for this high quality! Wonderful product once again Olympus.
Lens Optical zoom 3 x Focal length equiv. 35mm 38 mm - 114 mm Maximum aperture 3.1 (wide) / 5.9 (tele) Structure 6 Lenses 5 groups Aspherical glass elements 4 Focal length 6.3 mm - 18.9 mm
Digital Zoom Digital zoom 4 x / 12 x combined with optical zoom
LCD Monitor size 6.4 cm / 2.5 '' Pixel number 154000 pixels
Focusing System Focusing system TTL iESP auto focus with contrast detection Standard Mode 0.1 m - infinity (wide) 0.6 m - infinity (tele) Macro mode 0.1 m - infinity (wide) 0.6 m - infinity (tele) Super Macro mode From as close as 5 cm
Scene modes Number of scene modes 10 Sports Indoor Candle Self portrait Sunset Fireworks Behind Glass Cuisine Documents Auction
Exposure System Shutter speed 1/2 s - 1/2000 s (up to 4 sec. in night mode) Exposure compensation +/- 2 EV 1/3 EV steps
Sensitivity Auto ISO 64 - 400
White Balance White balance adjustment
Internal Flash Working range internal flash 0.2 m - 4.0 m (wide), 0.6 m - 2.1 m (tele) AUTO Red-eye reduction Fill in Off Function processing Panorama (only with optional Olympus xD-Picture Card)
Image Editing Resize
View images Index Zoom Slide show Rotation
View Movie Frame by frame Fast forward Reverse playback
Movie recording system Recording format QuickTime Motion JPEG® 320 x 240, 15 fps Up to card capacity 160 x 120, 15fps
Still image recording JPEG EXIF 2.21 PIM III DPS DPOF
another good review! i like olympus. it's a brand of camera i use through all my photography projects (mannual and digital). i used to have batteries in my previous olympus but even rechargable ones have a limited life span...not good for someone like me who takes a billion photos!!!! hahaha...photo mad! vicksx
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![Olympus µ[mju:] Tough 8000](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/655/Olympus_u_mju_Tough_8000__7056655.jpg)
21.01.2007 19:20
Thanks coops, this is very thorough-I definitely want this now!
22.12.2006 13:08
another good review! i like olympus. it's a brand of camera i use through all my photography projects (mannual and digital). i used to have batteries in my previous olympus but even rechargable ones have a limited life span...not good for someone like me who takes a billion photos!!!! hahaha...photo mad! vicksx
21.12.2006 17:09
This sounds like a great camera, good review.................: )