Camera reviews of Olympus Fe-170

Reviews on Olympus Fe-170 digicam

The good: Simple to use; inexpensive.

This camera automatically controls aperture, shutter, focus, and even ISO sensitivity and white balance. Basically, the camera runs almost completely on autopilot, one button, one function, on-screen Help function included, to give easy-to-understand descriptions of camera settings, 3x zoom delivers true-to-life photos, packed with 6.0 million pixels worth of detail, ease-of-use with an attractive compact design; use standard AA batteries. All in all it is a great choice for beginners and straightforward fuss-free photography.

The bad: Terrible performance.

The camera takes 5.7 seconds from power-on to first shot, and every shot thereafter suffers a wait of 4.8 seconds without flash. Shutter lag was almost as painful, taking a full 1.3 seconds from shutter release to shot. It has a sensitivity range of ISO 64 to ISO 400, though since the ISO isn't recorded in EXIF data, there's no way of actually telling what sensitivity setting the camera chooses for a given shot. It has no optical viewfinder. This model does not offer a continuous shooting mode, above average edge softness and image noise. Exhibits average amounts of barrel distortion at wide angle. The Digital Image stabilization mode is effective, but you will notice increased image noise and reduced detail. The red eye reduction flash mode was effective only at close range. Movie mode has no sound and you cannot zoom when recording.

I found these reviews on the links here:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0608/06082301olyfe170180.asp http://www.dcviews.com/_olympus/fe170.htm http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/olympus-fe-170/4505-6501_7-31965093.html http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/fe170.html http://review.zdnet.com/digital-cameras/olympus-fe-170/4505-6501_16-31965093.html