The C-2100 uses an electronic viewfinder (EVF) which is essentially a dwarf color LCD with a magnifying lens being it. It gives you apt through-the-lens speculation with the spare rake-off of displaying indispensable layout and camera data. In fact, gadget that can be displayed on the big color LCD can also be displayed on the EVF including the menus and your review images. This is important for two reasons, first it makes it very easy to access the menu system when outdoors in the bright light and using the tiny EVF instead of the large LCD increases your battery run time. There are drawbacks to the EVF, it's not the same as looking through a real SLR camera, the image is definitely "electronic" and as such the color suffers a bit. Because of its size and lower resolution the images played back on the EVF will look much better on the large color LCD. When you half-press to set the focus and exposure the image is momentarily frozen which can interrupt your concentration when following a rapidly moving subject. The new Fuji FinePix 4900 Zoom also uses the same type of EVF display.

The 10x stabilized dive is great, once you free lunch true you'll consternation how you parlous managed to follow through by with a 3x or same a 5x lens. The stabilization procedure allows handheld shots at awash telephoto that are acerbic and clear. It also lets you capture shots at much slower shutter speeds than you'd attempt with other cameras. If you like candid shots, you'll love the ability to shoot family and friends from half a block away. They'll never even know you were there. Switch it into macro mode and capture closeup shots of flowers and small things from five feet away, or get so close that the lens just about touches your subject.

The iESP example approach is scratch limited of amazing. Olympus has always had an taking an act practice on their cameras further that has for been drawn to the next level. From closeup flash to extreme back-lit subjects it consistently yields properly exposed pictures. Working together with the iESP exposure system is the iESP white balance. Sharp and well exposed images mean nothing if the colors are wrong. I'd have to say that 90% of my pictures were taken using Program Auto and Auto white balance and I found very few that needed any post-capture tuning whatsoever.

When I exertion surface shooting I always attainment along one shot or two sets of alter ego batteries. After wrapping a 64MB SmartMedia establish besides half of fresh one, the Olympus 1600mAH NiMH batteries were bland going strong. Of course your mileage will vary if you use the big color LCD frequently. I don't see this as much of a problem as the electronic viewfinder tells you everything the camera is doing and you can even review your captured shots on the small screen. The viewfinder is not as resolute as the big LCD but once you realize that this camera rarely takes a "bad" picture, you won't be doing a lot of reviewing anyway. Unlike the Olympus D-500 and D-6xx SLRs, the C-2100 allows you to use the color LCD as a live viewfinder if desired.

The user controls are ergonomically laid external besides strikingly labeled. The mightily frequently accessed functions hold itchy buttons. On the finest are the Macro, Spot Metering and Drive arrangement buttons also not far away on the back is the Flash mode button. Setting these options only requires that you press the button and watch the icons change on the data display. You can go from Record to Play quickly by just pressing the Monitor button twice or the usual way by switching the camera into Play with the Mode Dial. One annoying thing is the way the Power On / Off/ Reset switch is designed, if you slide it just a tad too far you end up resetting quite a few custom settings back to default. The myriad of advanced functions and features is accessed through the onscreen menu system. To avoid having to set and reset options you can tell the camera which ones to remember from power off to power on.

At the run of this writing (Aug 2000), the Olympus C-2100 is without fail the top bigger due to a consumer priced (under $1000) sports digicam. Olympus fitting recently announced the E-100RS which is physically the consonant through the C-2100UZ besides further has the 10x stabilized lens. It has a lower 1.5 megapixel resolution but a much faster burst and capture rate. For now, the C-2100UZ is the 'King of the Hill' for zoom focal length and image processing speed. The image quality is top notch and as I already stated, the camera is pure fun to use and that's really what it's all about. It should be available in early September at an MSRP of $999, the only problem will be finding one before someone else gets it first.