First 4-Megapixel Digital Camera Great for Shutterbugs and Pros Alike

Olympus offers the first consumer digital camera with 4-megapixel resolution, but it comes with a hefty price tag.

Grace Aquino, PCWorld.com

Olympus has delivered the first 4-megapixel digital camera on the block, the Camedia E-10. At $1999, it's quite pricey, but it offers more perks than a first-class airline cabin.

For starters, this solidly built, black aluminum-cased camera uses a single-lens reflex design, which gives you a through-the-lens view of your subject. As a result, what you see through the camera's optical viewfinder is the exact image you capture, giving you an accurate representation of the final picture. In most sub-$1000 digital cameras, you look through a separate viewfinder that doesn't get its image through the lens.

The E-10 also lets you manually adjust focus, zoom, aperture, shutter speed, and white balance, all of which provide creative flexibility for serious shutterbugs and professional photographers alike. The camera's 4.1-megapixel CCD captures handsomely crisp, uncompressed TIFF images at 2240 by 1680 pixels (its highest image-quality mode)--great for achieving sharp 8-by-10 prints. At such a high setting, however, you can store only two TIFF pictures on the included 32MB SmartMedia card.

The camera is dotted with control buttons and dials that make it look complicated to use--and it can be complicated for first-time digital-camera users. However, instead of navigating through layers of menus on its 1.8-inch LCD screen, you use the camera's knobs to get quick access to such settings as flash modes (auto-flash, red-eye-reducing flash, fill-in auto-flash, or off) and storage card management. (You have the option of saving photos on the bundled SmartMedia card or on an optional CompactFlash card; the camera carries slots for both types.)

One thing I found a little tedious with the shipping unit of the E-10 was changing the compression level mode. The camera can save photos at any of several compression levels (which gives you control over an image's file size), but you must click through a few layers of on-screen menus to change the setting. What's more, the LCD panel doesn't indicate the compression level for a quick reference, though it does show the resolution setting (SQ, HQ, SHQ, or TIF). You can swing the LCD panel between a 20-degree down angle and a 90-degree up angle, allowing you to frame a shot from almost any viewpoint. And after you take a picture, you can adjust its contrast and sharpness on screen.

Other notable features include a built-in flash; a hot shoe for attaching an optional, external flash; and a threaded lens mount for adding different lenses. The E-10 runs on two bundled, nonrechargeable LB-01 (CR-3V) lithium batteries. For the long haul, I recommend investing in four optional, NiMH AA rechargeable batteries and a charger (which Olympus sells for a combined price of $70).

Transferring photos from the camera to a computer is relatively easy. You simply load the Olympus Camedia Master 2.5 Utility Software onto your system and plug the included USB cable into your PC--the software automatically recognizes the camera and uploads the pictures saved on the memory card. For editing photos on your PC, Olympus provides Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE.

With such a laundry list of features and oodles of pixels, the Olympus Camedia E-10 is an ideal camera for those who are serious about photography and can afford to splurge.