| Product: |
Olympus FE-250 |
| Date: |
12.06.07 (163 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Highly portable with plenty of features and pre - set modes .
Disadvantages: No view finder
It’s amazing how much cheaper digital cameras are becoming and how much more memory you can get nowadays for your money. Only a few years ago I spent £600 on a Canon digital SLR that had a memory of just 6 megapixels. This Olympus I borrowed recently in order to use during a short holiday break has an incredible 8mp and for a price well under £200. For those who are looking for an inexpensive pocket aim and shoot camera the Olympus FE-250 might be just the thing you’re looking for. It has a sleek attractive slim line design measuring just 16.7mm and a smooth metal casing that feels nice and comfortable when taking pictures. It’s also a handy compact size that easily fits into a pocket.
I’ve only taken a few dozen shots so far but the results have been excellent with clear bright images possessing good colour variation and excellent contrast. I was quite impressed by the detail in the shots and the colour rendition of skin tones. This is no doubt partly due to the use of Bright Capture Technology which is employed by Olympus on many of its new compact digital cameras with the purpose of delivering exceptional performance in low light conditions and it seems to work very well as far as I can make out. If I were to find fault it would be perhaps a tendency to slightly over expose in automatic mode with one or two shots. At 8 million pixels, you are more or less guaranteed to get pictures with exceptionally sharp detail. According the manufacturer this should enable you to obtain large, high-resolution printouts, although this is a task that I rarely undertake. The maximum size of an image is 3264x2448 pixels. There are two compression levels (SHQ and HQ) at this size, but you can also choose from 2048x1536, 640x480 and 1920x1080. The camera only has a 20mp internal memory so you will have to purchase a memory card. The card slot supports xD-Picture card Type H/M up to 2GB.
The camera has 16 special pre-set shooting modes that can be accessed easily via a rotating dial and menu button on the back of the camera. These can save a lot of time when deciding what type of settings to choose. Apart from the usual such as Sports and Self-Portrait modes there is even a Cuisine mode and a Pet mode which I think is probably going a little over the top. While you’re busy setting up your ideal composition, a macro mode, flash mode and a self-timer are located on a 4-way controller for quick and easy use. These pre-defined settings are designed to help you get the best shot with the minimum of fuss. You can also get reasonably close up to your subject with this camera as it has a Super Macro mode with a the closest focusing distance being just 10 cm. There is a built-in flash with a wide angle range from 0.98 feet to 14.1 feet. At telephoto, the flash range is 1.6 – 8.5 feet. The flash can be set to auto, red-eye reduction, and fill; more importantly there is also an off button.
The FE-250 features a large 6.4cm LCD screen that does make it easy for you to frame your pictures before shooting. The screen is very bright with a contrast level 4x brighter than conventional most LCD’s, something that is an advantage in subdued lighting conditions. However, the screen does tend to be rather reflective, especially in bright sunlight and this can be a bit of a hindrance. One handy feature that can be accessed on the LCD screen that might be a bonus for some is a help guide that gives handy tips and advice on achieving various effect and shooting in various conditions such as shooting into backlight and adjusting colouration. One particular gripe I do have with this camera though is that there is no optical viewfinder of any type so you are relying solely on the screen, maybe it’s just something one has to get used to as it seems this is the way camera technology is heading.
I always feel that a movie mode on small cameras and phones is more of a gimmick than anything else and because I have a digital video camera for making movies, it is not something that I make much use of or pay much attention to. However, this camera does have movie mode and the recording format of the camera for movies is AVI Motion JPEG and you can also make sound recordings via internal microphones to accompany your video recording, but this can only be made in WAV format which might be a bit of a limitation for some. Movie quality is a reasonable 640 x 480 resolution at 30 fps although you can also record at the smaller capacity of 320 x 240 / 30 fps.
Conclusion
Despite some minor negative points this is still a great camera with lots of functions and useful features. I would recommend it for anyone who simply wants a highly portable camera that takes excellent shots along with a decent movie capture facility. At present the camera can be purchased at Amazon for around £190.
Other Features:
8.0 Megapixel CCD imager
3x optical (35 - 105mm 35mm equiv) zoom, 4x digital zoom
Digital Image Stabilization and Built-in Help Guide
TruePic TURBO Image Processor
2.5" color LCD and 10x playback zoom
16 shooting modes including AVI Motion JPEG movies with sound
Exposure compensation: +/-2EV in 1/3-step increments
Shutter speeds of 4 seconds to 1/2000 second
User selectable ISO range from 64 - 10000 (6400 and 10000 in SQ mode only)
Powered by the included LI-42B Li-ion battery
USB Direct-print with any PictBridge compatible printer
USB connectivity for PC and Mac
Other Box Contents:
Hand strap
Instruction Manual
Warranty Card
LI-42B Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery
LI-40C Charger
Olympus Master Software
CB-USB7 USB Cable
CB-AVC5 Video Cable
Summary: Value for money 8mg digital compact
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