C2020Z (Olympus Camedia C-2000 Zoom)

Member Name: dmullier

Product:	Olympus Camedia C-2000 Zoom
Date:	07/08/00 (220 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: True camera with manual controls

Disadvantages: some minor niggles above

The 2020 is a 2000 with all the annoying bits removed (like an off switch next to the shutter so you keep turning the camera off), with the addition of some really important features.

There is one reason why I bought this camera and no other. It is fully manual and allows me to never use my Minolta Dynax SLR. It's fantastic with full control over aperture and shutter. The shutter can go as long as 16 seconds, which is a must for night time photography (unless you're one of those idiots that thinks that a flash will light up an entire building). It also has slow-sync flash and a nifty remote control, which I use as a quick release for long exposures. You can also open the aperture up and get some arty blurred background portrait pictures. It also has a manual focus mode, which is a must for a real camera, exposure compensation modes and spot metering (another must in my opinion if you want something more than point and shoot).

Another strong point of this camera over most other is that you can attach other lenses (the Fujinon is a 35-100). You need to buy an adapter for other lenses because the lens extends from the camera body when its on. The expander (called the CLA-1 for some reason) puts a permanent hood over the lens (as if it's permanently out). This makes the camera a little bigger (it is tiny otherwise) but protects the lens if you put a filter on it. I use it for a UV or poloriser, but you can attach a fairly wide variety of lenses for extra zoom or a bit of wide angle.

The panorama mode is nice too. I'm not so bothered about the movie mode, but this is the sort of thing that will sell it to the mass market.

Picture quality is excellent, 2.1 mega pixels through a high quality lens. SOme lenses on digital cameras are woeful, take the Kodak fixed focus jobs (horrible). This is a real lens. The pictures are warm and focus is sharp.

The TFT screen is very high resolution in comparison to my old CL1000
(which I also loved).

There are a few minor niggles. The TFT screen is not recessed and so is open to scratches. I put a piece of clear sticky back plastic (get it for woolies for backing books, it comes of cleanly) to protect it but you do loose some clarity. Another minor niggle is the lack of USB, which means a 32meg card takes an hour to download, although I suppose you should be buying a card reader. Also the CLA1 adapter obstructs the flash slightly, leaving a slight shadow in the lower left corner of the picture and I don't like taking it on and off too much because it has plastic threads. Final niggle, it's not a tru SLR optically (i.e. if you look through the viewfinder you will get parallax error for close up subjects). However, you soon get used to using the screen alone, which makes it a true SLR, it's ok because it is very bright (in comparison to my old Kodak DC220 (yuk) and Oly CL1000 (love it)).

To conclude, this is my favorite thing. I go everywhere with it. Any one want to buy my Dynax (I couldn't say this with my CL1000 because it wasn't manual). I must have taken several thousand pictures with this camera and find it nice and easy to use.

I got mine for £450 after Jessops price matched an internet site.

Summary: