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Olympus Camedia C-740UZ ULTRA ZOOM (1 Viewer)

helenol

Well-known member
I would like to purchase a digital camera, mainly just for pics around the garden (birds etc).

Any comments about subject camera?

It's in the price range I want to pay - £349 - as this will be my first digital camera, so I don't really want to start off at the £700 plus mark - that will come later!

Thanks for any advice

Regards
H
 
I own one of the predecessors to the C740... the C700 and find it perfect for what you are describing.

If I were you though I'd spend the extra money and get the C750. It offers many more features for not that much more in price. I've heard of a lot of people who bought the 740 and then have wished they waited for the 750.

Add a teleconverter to the C7x0 and you've got some serious zoom! Just make sure you use a good tripod. (The C750 comes with a remote controll that will further reduce shake when on a tripod)

Just my two cents worth.
 
I've got the C700 too, I find it excellent for general use and would recommend it for this purpose.

BUT, if you intend to move into digiscoping then go straight to the Nikon 900's or 4500.

Another two cents..............

Martin
 
saluki,
I don't have a teleconverter at the moment but I have a TCON-17 on order (they will arrive in Aus in early Sept apparently).

Although they aren't compatible with the C700 according to olympus (but they are compatible with the c750...hmm) there are plenty of people out there who say it works VERY well.

I guess I'll soon find out (I hope)

Paul
 
Martin, thanks for the two cents worth..... :)

Carlos, thanks for that, I found the idea of trawling through the forum re a discussion about this to be a little, shall we say, tedious! Thanks again, I'll be checking it out after this post.

Saluki, thanks for that. What, with saving some money from your advice, and getting 4 cents from the previous posts, I'm quids in!
Cheers
H
 
I also have the C700 as well as a Nikon CP 4500 (for digiscoping). We're seriously looking at the C750 as it has about twice the megapixels of the 700, ie: 4. Still a bit pricey over here so we may wait and see if it comes down. We spent US$600 on the C700 2 years ago and have taken some great images with it. I just love that 10x zoom - its way better than the 300mm telephoto on my old SLR.
 
Thanks Helen for the vote of confidence. I've just been reading the post regarding the problems with Olympus. Oh dear :-(

However, it seems to me the problems seem to arise more on the U.S. side of the pond, perhaps just cra*py customer service there?

I'm quite concerned now though!

H
 
Not many on a 16MB card!

I think on the C750 the HQ (not SHQ) shots are around 1MB each... so that's 16 shots.

The 740 may hold a couple more, but it's still not many.
 
I wouldn't even bother with a 64Mb card! Mine came with an 8Mb card which stored 8 images at the SHQ (1600x1200) size! I did buy a 32Mb card, but when we were going to take a trip and couldn't take the laptop with us, I went and bought 2, 128Mb cards at a discount store - they should have been US$80 (about 60 pounds) each & I got them for $50. They've been coming down in price since then. I'm talking about the Smart Media cards - Oly have changed to something new & smaller now with the 750, but I can't remember the name. The highest quality image size is also bigger on the 750.

I have not had any problems, but I took out an extended warranty for a total of 4 years just in case. The only thing I've noticed is that there appears to be dust on the inner lens, though it has not affected the images! I took it back to the store and they offered to send it back for a cleaning, but it would have been gone for 3 weeks and I couldn't spare it for that long!

Good luck with your decisions and choices.
 
Well, I have decided, I guess I'm going with the 750UZ.

I noticed it was for sale at £359 at Amazon, I went into Jessops and they were quoting over £400! When I told them I could get it cheaper elsewhere, they said they would match the price.

I prefer to buy from the shop, (for human contact) than over the internet, especially on this occasion as I'm a novice regarding digicams If something does go wrong it's much easier taking it back to the shop. However there is about a 2 week delivery time.

I'm not one for purchasing extended warranty's normally, but on this occasion I'm wondering if it would be worth it for peace of mind.

Any comments on these warrantys for cameras - are they worth it?

Regards
H
 
I have mentioned this elsewhere on the forum, but I saved £130 doing exactly as you did - asking Jessops to price-match Amazon's price for my Canon G3. They did it with no quibble whatsoever.

As for the extended warranties - I never buy these. Some of them are not worth the paper they are written on. Also the sales staff make more commision when they sell you one of these policies than they do the actual product - that is why they are so vociferous in trying to get you to buy one.

Think about what can possibly go wrong with the camera outside the one-year policy, and how much that will cost to put right compared to how much you have paid them in premiums over two or three years. Also, that particular problem may not be covered by the policy anyway when (and if) the time comes - some are very restrictive in what they will pay out for.

Might you be upgrading in a couple of years anyway? If so, then any problem with the camera may happen after you've sold it.
 
You've echoed my thoughts. Hubby says that if something is going to go wrong, it will probably happen more or less straight away. I'll go without the extended warranty. Never bought one before, no reason to start now I guess.

Regards
H
 
My camera is on order (mid Sept).

What would be more practical, 2 x 64mb cards or one 128mb?

Also, I'm a little confused with the battery situation, should I be also purchasing batterychargers etc?

H
 
Which camera did you order Helen?

For my camera (C700) I have two sets of four 1800mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries with a fast (2 hour) charger that connects to both mains and a car cigarette lighter.

I get around 200 shots from a fresh set of batteries. I have one on charge while I'm using the other and I've never needed any more than that.

As for the cards. I've read that sometimes cards can become corrupt and you can loose all the pictures stored on the card (rare I think). In that case two 64MBs would be better as you are less likely to loose EVERYTHING. On ther other hand you have to swap cards over more.
 
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