Olympus CAMEDIA C-3030 Zoom Manual - Page 29

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outdoors and the sun gets in the frame but this is something we see with most digicams.

Screen visibility is good in all but direct sunlight where you should be using the optical

viewfinder unless you need to access the menus. I found it quite easy to shield the

screen by cupping my hand around it when I had to change settings in the great

outdoors.

Speaking of optical vewfinders ... the C-3030 uses the same eyelevel, coupled optical

viewfinder as the C-2020. There is a diopter adjustment knob on the side and it is a

large and bright viewfinder so even those wearing glasses will have no problems using

it. It shows slightly less than 90% of the final image. The LCD if used as a viewfinder

shows about 98% of the capture area. I did notice that the optical viewfinder is offset

from the actual captured image.

I received an email from Alan Chaffee asking me if the C-3030 had the same optical

viewfinder problem as the C-2020. So I performed the following (non-scientific)

experiment. I shot a picture with the viewfinder crosshairs on an easily identifiable

portion of the picture (indicated by the red vertical and horizontal lines) and then

checked the captured image's center. I sent the picture to Alan who brought it into Corel

PhotoPaint, made this

screen capture

and determined that the camera shifted the photo

to the left (by 28 pixels) and up (by 22 pixels). This amounts to a 9% (8.75) shift to the

left and a 9% (9.17) shift upwards.

One of the first exterior improvements I noticed was the new battery door (thank you,

thank you, thank you!) With the C-2000 and the C-2020, the user had to be

ambidextrous to the max to say the least. The new battery door closes easily and

logically and then stays closed with a sliding security latch. Be forewarned -- there is no

electronic interlock so if you forget to flip the security latch the camera still works and all

it takes is a good bump and that door pops open.

Unfortunately Olympus decided not to package a set of NiMH batteries and charger this

time. They did include two of their new lithium 3v battery packs that take the place of the

four AA type batteries. They work fine but they are not rechargeable so you'll end up

buying a set or two of NiMH batteries and a charger to complete this otherwise excellent

camera system. My only other complaint is the lack of any kind of lens cap keeper.

Even Nikon finally gave us a lens cap string with the new Coolpix 990.

Bottom Line is that this is an excellent camera. As I said at the beginning, it will be one

of the cameras that I'll recommend without hesitation to those seeking the "best" of the

Y2K consumer digicams.