Olympus FE-130 Digital Camera review
| Design |
| The Olympus FE-130 is a 5-megapixel digital camera with a 38mm-to-114mm (35mm equivalent) optical zoom lens, a 2 inch LCD screen. It has a solid rectangular plastic body in a matt silver finish with a dinky wave on the side to give it that slight air of sophistication. But this is a basic design with basic functions. You get a shutter-release button, four controls for shoot mode, playback, bin and print. You can change limited settings including the flash and timer and it comes with the usual scene modes including portrait and landscape. |
| Setup/Installation |
| Although this is a fairly easy camera to use, Olympus digital camera have provided a Guide mode on the camera that will help you with the camera and also how to take photos. |
| Features |
| The Olympus FE-130 is the idea camera for those of you who don’t want to think. Everything is done for you. You don’t have to mess around with white-balances or focus settings, just pick the scene mode you want and it’s ready to go. We have said this is for the amateur out there and not for those who like choices. The only think that will take up any of your brain power is the resolution you want your pictures to be taken in, whether to use flash or not, and the timer or EV compensation if you want to use those facilities. The digital camera has an automatic pixel-mapping feature that uses the camera’s sensor to select pixels that are either darker or lighter than the surrounding ones, and then it works its magic and recolours the pixels to fit in with the rest. Oh and then there’s the digital image stabilisation which allows more light in when you’re taking moving images and need a faster shutter speed so that your picture isn’t blurred. And finally there’s a VGA video mode to take 640x480 video footage. |
| Performance |
| This isn’t a digital camera that you’d take out on a professional shoot. It’s been designed to have basic functions for the consumer who has basic needs. And as such it’s not the sharpest knife in the cupboard. The start up is slow as is the time between each shot. It also takes a while from the time you press the shutter button down, to the time you actually take the image, and then takes even longer if you enlist the help of the in-built flash. The actual picture quality on the Olympus digital camera has some fringing and noise, but on a positive note it captures colours well and seems to have a well set white balance. However it didn’t work well in low lighting even though it has an image stabiliser that is supposed to compensate for this. |
| What's In The Box? |
| Olympus FE 130 digital camera, strap, USB cable, ImageLink adapter, video cable, two Alkaline batteries, Olympus Master (Software CD-ROM), manuals;Warranty card; |
| Overall Opinion |
For what it is, this is an average digital camera, but then it doesn't pretend to be anything else. There's 20 scene modes to pick from, there's a flash and everything is pretty much automatic. The picture quality isn't the best, but the Olympus FE-130 digital camera is cheap and cheerful, at a decent price. |
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Pros + Simple to use + 5 megapixel camera |
Cons - Not great pictures - Limited functions |
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Picture Quality 6/10
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Battery Life 6/10
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Setup Simplicity 9/10
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Build Quality 7/10
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Ease of Use 9/10
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Overall Rating 
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By Babita Wakelin
21/7/2006 at 3:50:20pm
21/7/2006 at 3:50:20pm
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