Olympus C-5060W Digital camera [5.0MP 4xOptical]

I have combined the Olympus with the I965 Canon printer, and the results, even at A4 size, are as high if not a higher quality than shop quality. Edge to edge prints, and even with a loupe it is difficult to fault. This says as much for the printer as for the 5 megapixel camera I feel. Whatever, I am mightily impressed.

Finally, I bought from Amazon because their price was the best - and that includes the USA, because if you add their sales tax it comes to the same, and if you import you suffer the dreaded VAT, making it dearer. The camera was delivered in 3 days over Xmas (to UK, I was over for the festivities) but I was dissappointed in the delay over the delivery of the larger memory card.

After much debating I eventually bought a Sony P93, as I saw a really good deal on another etailer. Upon firing up the camera and taking a few test shots I realised I had committed a grave error in purchasing the Sony. The colours were really washed out and not realistic at all. Bright greens were coming out an olive colour, reds appeared as a browny hue. Furthermore, the noise suppression was very aggressive to the point where objects such as a grass lawn appeared as one colour, without definition of the grass blades.

So, I returned the Sony and continued my search for the elusive 'perfect' camera. At the time I was after a compact camera to carry around in my pocket. I soon realised that to get the quality and features I wanted, this would not be possible. Again, after much reading etc, I decided to purchase the Olympus C-5060. I purchased from Amazon (my first time) as it was by far the cheapest price from all recognised online stores.

I have had the camera now for about 2 weeks and in that short space of time I have to say that the camera is perfect. The pictures are full of rich accurate colours and perfectly in focus. The camera starts up very quickly and shots are taken with a very minimal shutter lag, so as not to be noticeable. There's enough options on the camera settings to keep me experimenting for ages - already I have managed to improve on the camera's auto settings by a bit of tinkering.

The camera is definitely not small, but it's not so big as to be unwieldy. Taking shots is a breeze and the results are startingly good. THe flip up LCD screen makes low shots of the children a lot easier then the old lie down flat on the floor routine !!The video mode is pretty good as well which is a bonus.

Overall, there is not one thing I can critisize this camera for, it's perfect in every respect. Even the battery, which worried me at first, keeps going on for ever on a single charge - just as well when you look at the price for a spare !!

I would also purchase more items from Amazon in the future, the camera (and case) arrived on time and in perfect condition in the well packaged box.

The camera offers a plethora of different settings and adjustments, but to save you the bother of setting these up each time you can save 8 different set-up profiles which you can quickly and easily change between. I have a lo-res setting for basic snaps, hi-res jpeg and RAW settings with shutter/aperture priority, and a super-macro setting with the aperture set at f8 for max. depth of focus.

The viewfinder folds out and swivels to just about any position you like, allowing you to shoot from waist level or hold the camera up in the air while keeping the monitor in view.

The camera is chunky and solid, and despite being big for a digicam, feels just right in your hand. The buttons and menus are easy to use once you've spent a few hours playing with them.

As far as picture quality goes, A4 prints are indistinguishable from film prints. I cropped one of my macro shots to a quarter of the original size, and printed it at A4. The results were fine, suggesting that reasonable A2 size prints would be possible (you don't view big prints from close up anyway, do you?)

So to sum up this is an excellent camera, and, unless your after stupidly large prints (how often will you need A1 prints, really?) you won't regret buying it.