I've always been an Olympus camera fan, and have bought quite a few of them over the years - not because they're unreliable and need constant replacing, but because technology moves on and I don't like to get left behind! My last Olympus digital camera was only 2 megapixels (virtually top of the range when I bought it), so was due a well-deserved retirement. I settled on the Olympus mju digital 600 to replace it, and overall I've been fairly happy with it. One thing to note though if you're intending to upgrade from an earlier Olympus - the mju 600 takes an XD card, so you may not be able to use your old memory cards. And if you're buying a new card, make sure you buy genuine Olympus cards if you intend to use the camera's "panorama" function (it doesn't work with other cards).
What about the specification? Well, the mju 600 offers :- 6.0 megapixels ; a 2.5" (or 6.4cm) full colour LCD screen - that's big for a very compact camera which only measures 9.7cm x 5.5cm! (and is 2.7cm thick) ; 4 "still" photo qualities (SHQ, HQ, SQ1 & SQ2) varying from 2816 x 2112 down to 640 x 480 pixels ; 3 "video" qualities (SHQ, HQ & SQ) ; a 7.9MB internal memory which stores between 2 (SHQ) and 46 (SQ2) images ; BrightCapture Technology for better LCD images in low light conditions ; the usual very high quality Olympus lens, with 3 x optical zoom (5.8 - 17.4mm, equivalent to 35 - 105mm in 35mm format) and 5 xdigital zoom ; Macro modes allowing focus down to as little as 7cm from the camera ; 25 pre-defined "scene" programmes, including portrait, landscape, night scene, sport, indoors, sunset, "shoot and select" (for shooting a rapid selection of images which you can sift through to select the best ones later), under water, movie and many more ; all the other usual capabilities (self-timer, red-eye reduction, fill-in flash, etc.) ; and all in a stylish weatherproof (but not underwater!) metal body .
So what does this all mean? Well, in a nutshell, it generally means excellent photos (which - depending on the quality setting used - should be capable of good quality enlargement up to A4 and beyond) from a camera so small that you can take it virtually anywhere.
Are there any drawbacks? Well, sadly, there are. The biggest bugbear for me is the lack of a viewfinder. The large LCD screen is excellent in poor lighting conditions, but outside in bright lighting conditions it can be very hard to see clearly in the screen, making shot composition far harder than it ought to be - I've cut off more heads with this camera than Henry VIII ever did!
And given the body's size, it's not too surprising that the buttons are quite small, so anyone with gorilla-like hands may find it a bit awkward.
Finally, like all digital cameras, this doesn't cope especially well with "contrajour" shots (i.e. into the sun), but by the same token it probably doesn't cope any worse than many other equivalent cameras.
You'll probably find the mju 600 priced at about £150, but you might be able to get it for as little as £125. What do you get for your money? Well, you'll get :- the camera and strap (but no case) ; a lithium-ion battery (which can take loads of shots between charges, and charges quite quickly) ; a battery charger ; usb and video cables ; a basic manual (hard copy) ; an advanced manual (on CD) ; a warranty card ; and Olympus Master software which is both Windows and Mac compatible.
Overall, another good addition to the Olympus range, although they really do need to give some thought to the problem of picture composition using the screen in bright daylight.
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Good review. Almost bought one of these for my other half for Christmas but went for a slightly cheaper one, can't remember the model but am assured the pictures are great, he's in the Falklands at the moment taking pictures of penguins, amongst other things.
![Olympus Mju 600 Silver Digital Camera [6MP, 3x Optical Zoom]](http://images.ciao.com/ide/images/icons/no_pic_generic_S1.gif "Olympus Mju 600 Silver Digital Camera [6MP, 3x Optical Zoom]"){kind=icon}
Dec 29th, 2006
very helpful by (88%):
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