Product Description
8.0 million pixels Bright 3x zoom lens (equiv. 38-114mm on a 35mm camera), 1:2.8-4.9. 15x total magnification incl. digital zoom Large 6.4cm/2.5? LCD monitor Auto, Programme, Aperture Priority, Shutter priority and manual exposure, 24 scene modes (e.g. Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Fireworks, Underwater Wide) Focusing options: Spot with option to select AF area with 1 43 points, iESP autofocus and manual focus Super Macro mode up to 2cm Histogram function in shooting and playback modes Recording in JPEG or RAW formats Very long battery life (up to 510 shots)* and uses standard AA batteries TruePic TURBO image processor Movie recording with sound (VGA size at 30fps), recording length limited only by card capacity 25MB internal memory plus xD-Picture Card slot USB Hi-Speed AutoConnect PictBridge compatible Availability of converters WCON-07F, TCON-17F and underwater case PT-030 to extend photographic possibilities TTL hot-shoe connector for attaching external flashes (e.g. Olympus FL-20) Creativity lies in the palm of your hand With 8.0 million pixels the Olympus SP-350 is an enthusiasts dream. Four exposure modes hand the photographer the freedom to experiment whilst a precision 3x zoom lens (equivalent to 38-114mm on a 35mm camera), ensures that crisp and razor-sharp images are produced each and every time. Featuring a range of focusing options from regular iESP autofocus to spot and multi-spot AF this model can be focussed manually. In addition a histogram function is available, both in playback mode and in real-time whilst framing, to enable exposure distribution to be checked on the extra-large 6.4cm LCD. For those looking to extend the cameras capabilities even further, a whole host of accessories are available including lens converters, an underwater case and flash units that simply clip onto the cameras hotshoe mount.
Customer Reviews:
A great little point and shooter for day trips - only the small zoom and very very slow capture disappoints.......2006-09-04
This is a very comfortable, lightweight and small 8MP camera cosying about £180 that produces very good photos in varied conditions (even flash). I use cheap hi-power 2700 mH AA rechargeable batteries (2) and battery life is fine considering it's just two batteries. Others have reported poor battery life, but it's normally the battery indicator is lying and you need a firmware upgrade to correct the bug (easy, if a little risky, with the Olympus supplied software). Mind you even with the firmware upgrade, batteries don't last long so pack 6 spares (and only use hi-power rechargables or expensive lithium packs). So you will need a camera case that can pack more batteries, and a charger. Focus is quite good and fairly fast to lock if the menu is set to central focus and lock, rather than continuous hunting mode. Image quality is very good (for the price) and images are generally well exposed (rarely if ever overexposed) with a vivid attractive colour balance, and ASA goes up to 400 if needed - although at higher ASAs image noise (speckles & fuzz) is very noticeable when magnified.
There is a very good set of menu options enabling you to remove chirping camera sounds and annoying flash assisted focus, plus more pro options like focus modes & lock, ASA, many `scene' modes etc.. You can use an external flash (but it'll probably cost more than the camera) and a fun waterproof housing (twice the cost of the camera). We have a selection of xD cards but even a 512Mb one only holds 250 pictures in 3,264 x 2,176 HQ jpg mode. A 1Gb H (highspeed) Olympus Xd card works OK. Transfer to PC seems very fast compared to my E500 SLR (as it's USB2). There's no LCD viewfinder (it's there but optical only). Fortunately the very large rear 6.4cm [2.5"] LCD panel is great (and I can easily read the menus without glasses). I applied a cut to size PALM branded screen protector to prevent damage to the LCD screen. The camera also has VGA movie with sound.
The only thing I miss with this good little camera is a large zoom. The 3x just isn't as flexible as the image stabilised 12x zoom on the likes of a Canon S3IS and Panasonic DMZ. In the SP350's favour you get far less finger marks on the smaller lens, it's a great deal cheaper, a lot smaller and the wife/kids aren't fussed anyway. Also the recycle time is very very slow (5s or more) with flash - you think the camera or batteries have died - perhaps try increasing the ASA instead (although image noise may then become annoying). This slow capture speed has turned my wife against the camera, as she frequently misses shots waiting for the camera to get ready. You must pay to upgrade the limited supplied software to the excellent Olympus Master `Pro' version - reasonable for once as this camera is so cheap. But overall this is a great pocket-sized point and shoot camera, with a very comprehensive set of menu options should you wish to be more adventurous - a real improvement on the last generation sub £200 cameras. There few, if any, cameras at this price range that offer features such as aperture and speed priority settings. It is also well worth considering as a 'cheap' second camera for places where a digital SLR (or prosumer 12x zoom camera) is just too large and obtrusive.
The only downside is that the rather bulkier Canon PowerShot A630 Digital Camera (8.0MP, 4x optical zoom) offers the same features but is just so much faster at capturing images, has a better battery life (4xAA), plus it has that great swivel LCD screen - so you may well prefer to choose that alternative Canon model over this bijou cute Olympus for those three reasons alone.
A great camera looking for a suitable home.......2006-08-30
I love this camera! I've had it a few weeks now and the pictures just get better and better. To start with images were slightly blurry, but easily avoided with the use of a tripod, or as your hands learn how to hold the camera properly the pictures sharpen. It does feel great to hold, and is smaller than I imagined. The images at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/B000B4FVKE/ref=dp_image_text_0/202-2233840-9311801?ie=UTF8 are just about 100% to real size.
After doing lots of research into cameras (try dcresource.com, imaging-resource.com, steves-digicams.com and dpreview.com for great knowledge) the Olympus SP-350 matched my requirements perfectly:
i) High resolution of 7+ megapixels - The maximum size of 8MP in RAW mode are 3264 x 2448 and with some efficient resizing (search for 'upsizing' and 'interpolation') I am hoping to produce some very large poster prints.
ii) Great colours - Every image taken has amazingly accurate colours. Shots seem to have a film-like appearance, and are constantly pleasing, plus with RAW images, settings like exposure and white balance can be fine-tuned / changed on the PC before saving to TIF or JPG.
iii) Good macro focus - This camera has not only a great macro mode for images around 20cm away, but also a Super Macro mode for focusing on 2cm (or even less if pushed). This level of detail is unmatched as far as I can see, and perfect for my images.
iv) Full manual control - As mentioned the focus can be manually adjusted, as can practically every other feature on the camera. It does take a little while to learn the camera, but this must surely be said of every camera.
v) Cost - I bought the SP-350 and a 1GB XD card on Amazon.co.uk (via Pixmania.co.uk) for a total of just under £200. Again, this is unmatched in terms of quality for price ratio.
The only downsides I have found, but was aware of before purchasing, are the slow speed of saving images (cannot be helped due to the XD memory card), the very slight noise in images (im sure this is apparent in all digital pictures, and can be improved through post-processing), the lack of a rechargeable battery and not being able to power through the USB cable.
This camera is my ideal partner (talking on the electronical goods side of things :D ) and one I learn more about as time passes, providing progressively better results. I do fully recommend this camera, but you must be aware of its limitations as well as its advantages. There may be a more suitable camera for your needs elsewhere; for example either a more automatic point-and-shoot piece which will be cheaper, or a more expensive digital SLR for the professional. For me, the Olympus SP-350 falls in the right place, and feels good there too.
Dave Thomas
______
:o)E
Nice.......2006-07-25
right out of the box, this camera will take very nice pictures, and if you spent some time exploring the camera, a lot of super features will make this camera even better.
Many complain about shutter lag and being slow, this is true if you use the wrong settings.
I have taken pictures in brigth snow, rain, indoor, in the woods even in the dark without flash and all the pictures turned out very fine. But you will need to explore and understand at least some of the many settings.
it doesnt come with a special battery, instead it takes two normal AA sized batteries, so you will almost always be able to get power if you run out of juice.
biggest downside to the camera is the 8 MP, the human skin is quite disgusting if you take a closer look.
not the best of the bunch.......2006-07-25
This is the third digital camera that I have bought over the years and honesty I was disappointed. I was considerably slower at taking pictures even when half-depressing the shutter button so that auto focus, exposure and white balance had already been completed. Taking pictures of any moving subject is very hit and miss, both my previous cameras took half the time.
Secondly it doesn't come with rechargeable battery or charger so factor in £20 at least extra on the price.
The menus were complex and it took me a lot of time to discover how to use the full 8M pixels.
Excellent camera, excellent price.......2006-07-08
I'm no professional photographer but I've had some fantastic results with this camera, right from the first time I turned it on. It's comfortable to hold and it couldn't be easier to use. There are pre-set modes for just about every situation you can think of, and you can also adjust all the settings manually if you want/need to.
I'm planning on using this camera underwater (I have also purchased the Olympus PT-030 underwater housing) so an adjustable manual white balance was essential. The ability to shoot is RAW is also fantastic as you can edit the photos without them being compressed (as in a JPEG) and it's like getting a second chance at taking them. There are external lenses and strobes available as well, and with all settings able to be manually ajusted, this camera setup will still suit me as my needs develope and advance.
I thoroughly researched other cameras before settling on this one and found nothing but positive reviews for this camera. I've also seen other photographs taken with this camera and they are fantastic.
In my opinion, this camera represents a bridge between the compact point-and-shoot camera and the professional DSLR, at an extremely affordable price. Even when purchased with the underwater housing, this setup came in at under £400 - you can't get much better than that!
Customer Reviews:
EOS 300D - good replacement for 35 mm film........2004-08-17
I bought a Fuji 602 pro zoom to replace a Nikon 35 mm film camera and was very pleased with picture quality but very dissapointed that taking action shots with the fuji was pretty much impossible as it was so slow to take a picture once the button was pressed. I then bought a 300D and so far I have been very pleased with the results.
Anyone used to a film SLR will be able to master it pretty quickly and might not even need to read the instructions, I
didnt. I bought a 28-300 Sigma lense and a 500 MB card to go with the camera and on the highest picture quality setting this gives 114 or so pictures. You get good life too from the re chargeable battery. Action shots are now no problem at all
although macro shots are not as easy as with the fuji and the fuji probably shades the 300D on detail and colour sharpness.
Overall I think the 300D is well worth the extra cost over a more compact digital camera due to the flexibility offered
( lense changing, good manual focus and set up ) although the picture quality for me is a little soft focus for my liking, I
like a good sharp image with lots of detail. One good point with the 300D is that you can get very good results in low light without the use of the flash. I also like the fact that the pictures do not need a lot of computer fettling, you can just load them up and print them out for good results.
My advice is that if you are going digital after using a film SLR dont be tempted to save a bit of cash by buying a compact if like me you are likely to take action shots as you will only get frustrated. Buy a 300D, get a good lense and a 500 MB card and also get a good printer as the printer might turn out to be the limiting factor. A minor point is that my 300D and lense will not fit in the camera bag I already had. I dont know what the propper name is for this type of bag but it is the type where the camera goes in lense first, and I could not find a similar bag that it would fit into. I had to get a bag which was probably meant for a camcorder and it is a little too big to carry around and not feel self concious about.
I hope this review helps someone. I can imagine using my 300D for years to come and I think that the quality and facilities are very good and that for most people spending more money than this camera costs would not really be necessary.
Superb, brilliant, fantastic, almost faultless.......2004-01-04
I spent a long time waiting for the digital camera that met my needs – something to go alongside my Canon EOS film set-up but digital. I was actually about to buy the Canon 10D but then heard the 300D was about to be released and I was pretty much sold on the latter. When I first saw it, I was completely sold (in part because many of the reviews I’d seen were not quite as accurate as I’d thought).
So what’s so great about it? Well, any user of a Canon EOS camera will have no trouble getting used to it as it uses the standard sort of controls and interfaces common to Canon for so long, and allows you to use any lenses or gadgets you’ve bought already (eg. Remote photo release button). It’s also an excellent purchase for anyone new to photography – like all EOS cameras, there are a combination of manual modes where you control what’s going on and more automated modes allowing you to get great photos quickly. With this combination you’re able to learn quickly how to take photographs well and with the benefit of the LCD on the back of the camera to see the photo you’ve taken, you’re less likely to take shots which once developed turn out to disappoint.
The photos I’ve had from it (using low cost lenses) has been absolutely superb and the overall ability and feature-set of the camera is so far beyond my current photographing ability that I won’t be making any upgrades for a long time. I’ve been particularly impressed by the cityscape night time shots as they’re so much clearer than anything I’ve taken before; bright landscapes are also far crisper and macro photography does not seem to pixelate at all.
The bundled software is very good – Photoshop Elements (whilst not as full of features as Photoshop or Corel PhotoPaint) is likely to meet most users’ needs, and the Canon ZoomBrowser software allows you to see what settings you used for a specific photo – eg. Exposure compensation, aperture, shutter speed and lens attached are all detailed. Again, this is useful to enable you to learn from mistakes etc. This last tool is really good as it means you don’t have to note down what settings you used (which it’s so easy to forget about anyway).
So, what about the 10D which it’s so often compared against – personally I think you’re better with the 300D… it’s nowhere near as heavy (admittedly the build quality of the 10D is better, but you wouldn’t want to drop either of them anyway! Other reviews I saw suggested the 300D was very plastic and cheap – I don’t agree with this at all), all the basic features are there, the controls are slightly different although I preferred the 300D directional buttons on the back rather than the 10D dial. Actually, the logic I applied was that since I didn’t really understand most the extra features the 10D offered above the 300D I wasn’t likely to need them, and having read up on them I feel this was the right decision.
Oddly (only discovered this yesterday), although both the 300D and 10D offer RAW picture format (for ultra-high quality) and various levels of JPEG, the highest level of JPEG (which is what I recommend for general use as it allows circa 200 photos per 512Mb CompactFlash card, and prints perfectly to A4) is actually compressed less on the 300D than the l0D, which I guess means the picture quality is actually higher on the 300D. The inner workings of the camera are pretty much identical anyway so you can’t get a better photo from one camera against the other if you’re using the same lens and RAW picture format.
Okay, so what are the faults – well, on the scale of things they’re fairly minor but a bit irritating… the battery cannot be recharged whilst it’s in the camera – you have to take the battery out. The pictures can be loaded onto your PC my either removing the CompactFlash card and putting it into a card reader, or using Canon’s software to load the images – you cannot get the camera to appear as an extra drive on your PC to move the files yourself which annoyed me as I didn’t like the Canon software for moving the files. Also, if anything the camera seems to have a slight knack of underexposing although as you’d expect it’s dependent on the environment you’re working on, and can be controlled by very minor exposure compensation or bracketing. I’m not that convinced this wasn’t the case with EOS film cameras though so the verdict’s out on that.
All in all, I can’t recommend this enough – it’s superb, an amateur / semi-pro camera which is light enough to easily take on holiday with you. If you have an EOS camera though remember to avoid the EF-S lens kit though as that won’t fit your other camera. You will not be disappointed!
Great Camera - but don't skimp the lenses!.......2003-12-19
I have had my 300D for a week now. I didn't purchase the lens kit as this camera deserves better. I purchsed 2 mid quality lenses, a Canon 20-35mm and a Canon 28-135mm IS (Image Stabiliser). The street price is around £400 for each of these lenses. The latter comes very highly recommended.
Clearly I haven't had much time to evaluate the camera and lenses together, and I haven't completely mastered the 300D either (I last owned an SLR 30 years ago).
My initial reaction is that this is a great camera with huge potential allowing the photographer to display their skills (or lack of ;-) )
The 300D is so good that it shows up the quality of the lenses very clearly.
So my advice is to buy the 300D along with the best lens that you can afford!!!
Also to learn to use at least the basics of Photoshop Elements which comes with the camera as this will greatly improve your pictures - the pro's do it, so should you!
Finally get yourself a good printer - I have the Canon i965. Your prints will be better than the best photo lab!
Have fun!
Excellent for amateurs and professionals alike.......2003-12-08
Bought this camera to replace a smaller digital camera and a larger SLR. And I am not in the least dissappointed by the results.
I have spent the last week experimenting with all of the different modes and features and seems to fail to get good results with the camera. With the exception of the autofocus which does have problems in dim light or with certain textures. It can also lock on to the wrong part of the frame.
The only thing that I have regretted is going for the body only. I already head 4 Canon lenses, but with the change in focal length due to the smaller CCD I no longer have wide angle. Should have read the above review first!
The battery lasts for ever too!
A fantastic camera for everyone!
Unbelievable value, but..........2003-10-08
Unless you are a more advanced or professional photographer needing the few extra features or specific strengths that higher models offer, you will appreciate the control and yet ease of use that the 300D offers, not to mention the price tag...
Unless you already have a collection of Canon lenses going down to at least 18mm, I would recommend going for the lens package as the 1.6x multiplier means that you will need an (expensive!) 18mm lens to go down to a general-use 28mm focal length, 35mm equivalent. In addition to being a good-quality lens in its own right, the EF-S is lightweight, compact and a great value general-use lens for the little bit extra you pay. Look forward to more of the lightweight EF-S lenses in the future (although they will be incompatible with you 35mm bodies).
In addition, you will also want at least a 256mb CF card (preferably 512mb or 1gb if you plan to do a lot of shooting), a good UV filter per lens to protect the front element, a second battery, and a decent camera bag to hold everything. Depending on the type of shooting you do, a tripod - or monopod - is also a good idea.
Bottom line: an excellent starter-intermediate package for about £1,000 all in.
Product Description
Duplicates people or subjects in funny situations ! This filter is made of a black mask which covers half the surface of the lens, thus permitting two successive exposures on the same shot. Not recommended for Digital. Cokin A Series Filters are recommended for lenses between 36 and 62mm in diameter with a focal length over 35mm. Cokin square filters fit into a holder and are attached to a lens via an adapter ring.
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