Olympus C-5000 5MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

We bought ours more than five years ago on the recommendation of a pro photographer. It has thusfar never failed to deliver all it promised to deliver, though by today's standards it may appear to fall short in regards to pixel memory or other bells and whistles.

Nevertheless, it has performed outstandingly in super macro mode (the feature which we were most in need of), and contrary to what other reviewers have said here, I believe it has delivered high-quality colour reproduction.

Right out of the box, one can use the Auto mode and capture brilliant snapshots and portraits. BUT don't stop there. Read the manual through. This model has loads of advanced shooting modes and features you will want to explore..including a panorama mode and a side-by-side picture mode.

The ONLY shortcomings this model has are shutter lag (kind of sluggish by today's standards), less powerful optical zoom (I'd gladly trade the digital zoom for more optical power), and the movie feature really comes up lacking by contemporary standards (jittery, and no sound).

But overall, the prices I see here on Amazon are a bargain.

Bought this camera and it died on me 13 months afterward. Not covered under warranty. The CPU went out and they want $150 to fix it. My local camera shop says they can't do the work here and that it must go to Olympus. NEVER BUYING OLYMPUS AGAIN.

I bought this camera almost a year ago. I have used it constantly since. They battery has a great life... I don't have to charge it very often. It's relatively simple to use and master. I love the black and white setting. Overall, this camera takes excellent pictures that look like studio quality.
I'm planning on buy the underwater housing (PT-019) before our next vacation.

my olympus c-5000 died exactly a year and 10 days after owning it. I didnt use it that much and it worked fine, but when i started using it alot about 2 weeks ago, the thing died and when i charged the battery it still didnt work, then i gave it one more try and it started beeping loudly and i smelt burning rubber coming from my camera! it fried after about a year of owning. never buying olympus again

this is my second digital camera. my first is a refurbished 3 megapixel from Canon that was great at taking the instant snapshot. i had no exposure problems for that one for some reason. this Olympus on the other hand is great after some practice.

In my case, I got this to shoot my school portfolio shots. i'm a graphic design student with okay photography skills but not a pro. So I required a bit of patience for composition and lighting. Its good enough to print big tabloid sizes on an epson at 200dpi (heavyweight matte) at the maximum tiff file size. The colors are great especially after you fight to get the right exposure at non-optimal conditions. But it took me like 1000 shots to get over the muddy exposures. (crash course in photography - lighting is king)

On a sunny day its great. I like the manual controls though you can't save the settings completely and have to reprogram the thing. With the timer and tripod, the slow shutter speeds help for dark to night shots. I tried the nighttime mode and it was remarkable compared to say playing around with a manual film camera for the first time. the flash is adjustable and having a hot shoe helps for the glamour shots.

Scrolling through all the menus and submenus are okay. I use a Canon G5 at work and its numerous buttons at first is intimidating but seems quicker access than this Olympus. Yet the scrolling on the C5000 is okay to use unless you are freaking out and rushing. Its better than the Canon in that it seems more logical as I didn't really study the manual in detail.

Back to the controls, it has some good adjustable controls to hot rod your shots. I just wish it could stop down (or is it up?) to smaller aperature than F/8. The zoom is average range. But for some reason the super macro has great shots - probably because all the light is up close - compared to regular shots.

Sometimes when you shoot dark shots there is some noise and speckles in the image dark areas even when you use noise reduction. And there is a somewhat vignette phenomena as well.

Other good things about the camera: the various white balance controls helps alot; the camera starts fast. the controls are fast.

Not so good things: transferring files is not so fast as the Canon G5 and its software. the included 16mb Xd card is a joke. waiting for the camera to reload after the 15 mb tiff file is saved is tedious. you have to have a spare proprietary Olympus battery if you get carried away and run out of juice. no included hand strap.