Carla Thornton

Olympus Camedia D-510 Zoom

The Camedia D-510 Zoom turned in above-average battery life, lasting 326 shots on one set of four standard AA batteries. And for a $399 point-and-shoot digital camera, it offers some impressive extras. You can tweak the white balance and sensitivity and choose from 12 different combinations of image size and quality, including the uncompressed TIFF format in several different resolutions. A 9X digital zooming capability augments the 3X optical zoom lens, controlled by a comfortable toggle on top of the camera. A slow-sync flash setting lets you achieve interesting nighttime lighting effects. You can even record 15-second silent movies or use the camera's simple bracket overlay to line up pictures for combining later into a panorama. And you can set the camera to display 16 thumbnails at once, useful for quickly scanning a card's contents.
The D-510 Zoom looks and feels a little cheap. The 11-ounce case is made of lightweight plastic and carries relatively few button controls. The D-510 Zoom wasn't terribly easy to use, either. Sliding off a lens barrier with a slippery fingerhold turns the camera on, pops up the flash, and extends the lens all at once. When the lens retracts, it's easy to accidentally slide the barrier into it. The macro mode has limited utility, since it requires the lens to be at least 8 inches away from the subject. Like other Olympus digital cameras, the D-510 Zoom makes keeping track of picture settings an Olympic event. It's nice to have a choice of four sizes and three quality settings, but the labels the camera displays in the LCD for some settings aren't descriptive enough. For instance, "SQ" can refer to any of six combinations of image size and quality, ranging from a low-compression 1280 by 960 to a highly compressed 640 by 480. The only way to remember what setting you've chosen is to check it in the menu.
The D-510 Zoom racked up midrange scores for on-screen picture quality and mediocre scores for print quality, due mainly to a slightly underexposed outdoor shot and some artifacts in our black-and-white charts. In informal testing, we had trouble focusing on dimly lit subjects 5 feet away, even with forced flash. The skimpy user's manual lacks an index and ignores some features, such as digital zoom. The Acrobat manual on CD is better but still doesn't provide enough detail. Even the camera treats some features like an afterthought. If it weren't for a mention in the manual, we never would have known that the D-510 Zoom could shoot movies; the camera offers no button label or menu selection for this function. (You push the timer/trash thumbpad arrow repeatedly to activate.) The attractive Camedia Master application downloads images onto a PC and performs basic image manipulation, including resizing, rotating, converting the format, and stitching panoramas together.
Although nicely appointed for a $399 camera, the Olympus Camedia D-510 Zoom falls short on ease of use and picture quality.

Buying Information

Olympus Camedia D-510 Zoom 2.1 megapixels, 1600 by 1200 maximum resolution, 35mm to 105mm focal range (35mm equivalent), f2.8 to f12.6 aperture range, shutter speeds from 1/2 to 1/1000 second, optical and LCD viewfinders, USB and video connections, 8MB SmartMedia media, four AA batteries, 11.5 ounces with batteries; Camedia Master 2.5 software. One-year parts and labor warranty; toll-call support for 13 hours on weekdays. $ 399 2.1 megapixels, 1600 by 1200 maximum resolution, 35mm to 105mm focal range (35mm equivalent), f2.8 to f12.6 aperture range, shutter speeds from 1/2 to 1/1000 second, optical and LCD viewfinders, USB and video connections, 8MB SmartMedia media, four AA batteries, 11.5 ounces with batteries; Camedia Master 2.5 software. One-year parts and labor warranty; toll-call support for 13 hours on weekdays. http://www.olympus.com 800/622-6372