Olympus C-770

he C-770 is the latest in a long line of
Olympus ultra-zoom cameras, all of
which feature a compact design
and a powerful long-range optical zoom. The fact
is, though, it’s all getting a bit confusing. We’ve
had the C-720, C-725, C-740, C-750, C-760, C-765 and
now the C-770. The overall impression is of a
continuing succession of very similar-seeming
cameras that hardly seem move the concept
forward at all.
The current 10x zoom appeared with the C-740
(originally it was an 8x optic) and 4-megapixel
resolution (previously 3 megapixels) arrived with
the C-765, as did a new, lower-profi le design.
The C-770 adds a high-speed, high-quality
MPEG4 movie mode, with 640 x 480 pixel
resolution and a 30fps frame rate, and you do get
a 128MB xD card thrown in as standard. But while
home movie makers might be swayed, there’s
little here that’s new for photographers.

Quality feel

The C-770’s black fi nish and substantial weight (for
its size) do give it an impressive feel of quality.
Something shakes about inside when you move
the camera – internal lens elements, maybe? But
it’s not unknown in other cameras and clearly just
a harmless characteristic in this one.

Speed and responsiveness

The feel of the switch might be good, but the
start-up time isn’t. It’s about four seconds before
the C-770’s LCD is showing the scene in front of
the camera and it’s ready to shoot.
The AF system focuses cleanly and quickly in
good light, whether it’s at the wide-angle end of
its zooming range or at its 380mm (equivalent)
stretch. However, it doesn’t give any positive
feedback that focus has been achieved. A green
‘lamp’ on the LCD or in the viewfi nder is all you
get, and there doesn’t seem to be an audible
focus confi rmation which you can switch on.
And at closer focusing distances, things can
start to go wrong – getting the camera to focus on
the foreground rather than the background can be
a nightmare. This is where you need to switch to
manual focusing, which you activate by holding
down the menu button for a couple of seconds.
This displays a distance scale and a central,
magnifi ed LCD section. At wide-angle settings, you
can’t really see any difference over a wide focus
range, but at telephoto settings the manual
focusing becomes more precise.
The continuous-shooting modes aren’t quite as
sports-orientated as they could be, either. The
maximum frame rate of 2.5fps is OK, but not the
viewfi nder blackout that goes with it. Following
moving subjects becomes almost impossible.
There’s no image stabiliser, and no RAW mode.
There is a live histogram display to tweak
exposure settings, but for some reason this is
disabled in the manual mode – the one mode,
where you’d be most likely to want it.

Viewing and controls

The 1.8-inch 118,000-pixel LCD on the back of the
camera is as good as we’ve come to expect these
days from top-name brands, but the electronic
viewfi nder is a little less impressive. An
electronic viewfi nder is necessary, of course,
because there would be no way of designing
and coupling an external optical viewfi nder
with a lens of this zooming range.
The EVF image is reasonably sharp for this
kind of display, but a little lacking in contrast
and saturation and inclined to wash out when
confronted with heavily backlit scenes.
The navigational keys are four separate
buttons arranged in a circle with a central
menu/OK button. Press the menu button, and
the LCD displays a four-way menu,
corresponding to the directional buttons. The
default button assignments are for metering
pattern, image size and quality and macro
mode (the fourth button always accesses the
menu system proper). You can, though,
reassign these buttons. We’d leave the macro
button as it is, but set the others to access the
white balance and ISO. Otherwise, these are
two awkward to get at via the menus.
The C-770’s image quality is generally but
not always good. The basic defi nition is very
creditable, but the colour accuracy isn’t always
everything it could be and, more seriously,
there’s the colour fringing that appears around
highlights and light-toned objects. It’s not
severe, but it is widespread.
In fact, the C-770 is a bit of a puzzle. It’s
extremely well made and fi nished and boasts
some impressive features, not least of which
are that 10x zooming range and PASM
exposure modes. On the other hand, it lacks
certain features you’d hope for, like a RAW
mode or an image stabiliser.
Worse than that, like Canon’s PowerShot
S1 Pro, the C-770 seems expensive for what it
is, especially when you compare it to rival
ultra-zoom cameras. Maybe Olympus considers
the MPEG4 movie mode puts it in a higher
league altogether?
Photographically, Konica Minolta’s DiMAGE
Z2 offers the same resolution for much less
money, and the Fujifi lm FinePix S5000 might
have slightly lower image quality, but it
handles much better and sells now for up to
£200 less than the C-770. The Olympus really
needs to see some signifi cant discounting to
compete properly against existing cameras.
The real killer as far as the Olympus is
concerned is Panasonic’s FZ10. The Panasonic
has a longer zoom range, with a constant
f2.8 maximum aperture, superior manual
focusing, great handling, an image stabiliser –
and it costs less.
If you want a snapshot camera that can
dabble in more serious long-range
photography, the C-770 will do. But compared
to the mighty Panasonic FZ10, the Olympus is
just a sheep in wolf’s clothing.