Olympus mju 300

lympus has been very busy with its digital
compact range. One of our long-standing
favourites, the C-300, has been swept aside
with this, the μ[mju:] 300 Digital and a cheaper 3.2-
megapixel model, the S-350.
It’s a smart move to bring the styling of the
automatic zoom compact μ[mju:] film cameras to the
digital range, and Olympus has done it without
increasing the camera dimensions and has also
introduced an all-metal finish that gives the camera a
real feeling of solidity and quality. Not bad for £350. Yes,
you can get a 4-megapixel camera for this price (like
the Samsung DigiMax V4 on page 38), but not everyone
will need the modest increase in resolution and the
μ[mju:] 300’s looks and build are highly persuasive.
The new Olympus uses the xD Picture card format
being pioneered jointly by Olympus and Fujifilm.
Smaller than SD memory cards, xD cards are designed
to use less power, work faster and offer sizes (in the
future) of up to 8GB. Anyone worried that yet another
new memory card format will signal a price hike for
memory storage can stop worrying now. Already, xD
cards are substantially cheaper than the SD cards used
in most low-cost digital cameras, and on a par with the
prices of CompactFlash storage.

So what does it do?

The snapshot digital camera market has matured
to the point where just about all cameras have all
the tools and features most casual photographers will
need. As well as a fully programmed auto-exposure
mode, the μ[mju:] 300 offers ‘scene’ modes for
portraits, self-portraits, night scenes, landscapes and
landscapes with portraits.
Flash modes include auto, on, off and red-eye
reduction. No slow flash mode? All you have to do is
use the night scene mode, which has the same effect,
balancing the built-in flash against ambient light. It
works as well indoors as it does outside, preserving the
colour and atmosphere of room lighting while reducing
the effects of movement blur and camera shake.
You switch the camera on by sliding back the lens
cover and the startup time’s around three seconds. The
zoom lens has a range equivalent to 35-105mm on a
film camera. On the back is a 1.5-inch LCD that,
although quite small, has a good resolution of 134,000
pixels, to make it very sharp indeed.
The all-metal case doesn’t just look and feel good,
it’s splash-resistant too. No worries, then, about
taking it down to the beach, the pool or the snow
slopes – but Olympus stresses that the μ[mju:] 300
isn’t waterproof. Extras include a dinky little remote
control unit, included with the camera, a panorama
mode and the ability to resize images once they’ve
been taken.

Size and usability

For such a small camera, the μ[mju:] 300 is remarkably
easy to grip and use. Switched off, its small size and
smooth contours mean that it’s eminently pocketable.
Switched on, its controls are well-spaced and easy to
work – and you don’t find yourself covering them up or
working them inadvertently as you grip the camera.
Olympus has been developing its digital camera
control systems for some time now, and the μ[mju:]
300 demonstrates the fruits of all this work. For a start,
Olympus has not been tempted by the four-way
thumbpads on other cameras and sticks to separate
directional controllers. These are far more positive and
accurate. You use these to navigate around the menus
and to control picture playback. But in the shooting
mode, they double-up as short-cuts to the most
commonly-used photographic controls. Press left for
macro mode, right for flash mode, down for the self
timer and – more interestingly – up for the scene
modes. These are displayed on screen in a circle and
you use the arrow buttons to ‘spin’ the circle to get
to the mode you want. If you need access to the
whole menu system, there’s a separate button on
the backplate.
The control layout and design is excellent. The
back of the camera is plain and unfussy, yet the
camera’s various functions and settings can be
reached with a rapidity that most other cameras
simply can’t match. What’s more, most of the
options can be activated and changed with the
scene you’re shooting still ‘live’ on the LCD.
It’s not all sweetness and light, mind. The zoom
control feels sluggish and it’s difficult to get the
zoom ratio exactly right – it moves in and out in
steps rather than a smooth, linear fashion. The
memory card door is stiff, too, with a rather
unsatisfactory little lug that needs to be pressed in
while you’re pushing the door open.
If you want to use the optical viewfinder rather
than the LCD, you’ll find it a bit on the small side but
it’s perfectly usable and there’s no optical distortion.
In playback mode, the μ[mju:] 300 takes around
a second to display each image as you cycle
through, but unlike some rivals it renders a fullresolution
version straight away instead of a low-res
version followed by a wait before the full-res
image appears. It’s quick to zoom in on saved
images and pan around them, though you have to
keep pressing the buttons instead of just keeping
them held down.

Picture quality

By now we’re used to digital compacts producing
images that are as good as those generated by more
expensive models, and the μ[mju:] 300 doesn’t
disappoint. Images are sharp and crisp, the exposures
in our test shots were bang on and the focusing is
reliable. Colours are bright and saturated, and the
auto-white balance does a terrific job in nearly all
conditions. Tungsten lighting produces slightly overwarm
shots, even using the tungsten pre-set, but
that’s a trait shared by most digital cameras.
If you need more resolution than this you should
be looking at a 4-megapixel or 5-megapixel camera.
You won’t find a 3-megapixel model significantly
sharper than this one.
You are paying a bit of a price premium for the
μ[mju:] 300’s design, but not a big one. The
performance isn’t compromised one jot and as a
snapshot camera it’s perfect. The control layout is
simple but effective, and it’s hard to see anyone
being disappointed with the results.