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Menu: Home UP FreeBSD 4.6 Redhat 7.3 Olympus C-2100UZ Reavis Trail OpenBSD 2.9 Windows survival kit TopoUSA vs. Topo! RH6.2 vs Caldera 2.3 Links Contact Info My Resume My Public Key EMAIL Eric BadTux Portal[et]	The Big Zoomer When I wanted a camera I had some fairly simple goals. I wanted a 10x optical zoom. I wanted image stabilization so that I could use that zoom without getting blurry pictures. I wanted at least 1.5 megapixels. I wanted Linux compatibility. And oh, I wanted it all for less than $500. There were only two cameras on the market that came even CLOSE to meeting my requirements: the Sony Mavica FD97, and the Olympus C-2100UZ. Both have a 10x optical zoom and image stablization. Both are 2 megapixel cameras. In the end, though, what led me to the Olympus was what it DIDN'T have: bulk and weight. The Sony is a huge, bulky, battery-eating thing built around a floppy drive and weighing several pounds. The Olympus is a sveldt camera weighing in at slightly over 1 pound complete with batteries and all. I got my Olympus at CompUSA for $493. Fry's had already sold out on them -- apparently they've been discontinued and replaced with a much less capable camera. I then went to Fry's and bought an extra set of NiMH batteries for it. It uses standard AA NiMH batteries and comes with a battery charger for NiMH batteries as well as a set of batteries. It takes four batteries total. I also bought a 128MB SmartMedia card for $42 at that time, since the Olympus came with a puny 8MB SmartMedia card. The 128MB card will hold over 250 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution! That's 10 rolls of film, or around $50 worth of film. Add in another $50 for photo processing, and that's $100 worth of pictures being held by that $42 card -- and the card can be re-used after I download the pictures to my laptop, unlike the film. Downloading Pictures At first I downloaded using Windows. But of course I could not let that continue. So I did a web search and found the 'gphoto2' project for Linux. This is apparently the next generation of the gphoto product. Note that gphoto2 is still under development. It does not have a GUI yet. But it works great with the Olympus. You can get gphoto2 from: www.gphoto.org. You will also need libusb. You can get libusb from: libusb.sourceforge.net. I am using this software on Red Hat 7.2, so I already have USB drivers installed. My laptop has a USB port. So I used the USB cord that came with the camera, plugged it in, turned on the camera. I could then list the pictures currently on the camera with: gphoto2 --port usb -f '/DCIM/100OLYMP' -L I could download all the pictures to my laptop with: gphoto2 --port usb -f '/DCIM/100OLYMP' -P And finally, I could delete them off the camera with: gphoto2 --port usb -f '/DCIM/100OLYMP' -D Camera Quality There's a lot of reviews out there on the web about this camera, most by people who know more about photography than I do. The only reason I write this is to assure people that this is a good camera that is Linux-compatible. The biggest complaint any reviewers have is the lack of a "shoe" for a SLR-style flash. It does, however, have a plug on the side for a professional-style flash. The built-in flash does a decent job -- the picture of the box that is at the top of this review (click it for the bigger picture) was taken with the flash, using the zoom to zoom in from about 6 feet away (good flash distance), in a darkened room. It works. Conclusions It's a good camera, it's one that will last years (I can never foresee needing more than 1600x1200 resolution for photos bound for the web!), it has a zoom that is to die for, it works with Linux, and it's relatively inexpensive when you consider how much film and photoprocessing costs (and how much your time for scanning pictures into computers costs). The only consumables in the camera are the batteries, and they are standard rechargable batteries that you can buy for $12 per set at any electronics store. I foresee years of service. I did not buy a digital camera earlier because none had all the features that I wanted at a price that was reasonable. The Olympus C-2100UZ is perfect proof that good things come to those who wait. We live in amazing times, and the C-2100UZ is just another product of those amazing times for those of us who look around in awe at what has happened over the past few years, where even today's cameras have more memory in them than room-sized mainframes had only fifteen years ago.

Eric's Home Page

The Big Zoomer

When I wanted a camera I had some fairly simple goals. I wanted a 10x optical zoom. I wanted image stabilization so that I could use that zoom without getting blurry pictures. I wanted at least 1.5 megapixels. I wanted Linux compatibility. And oh, I wanted it all for less than $500.

There were only two cameras on the market that came even CLOSE to meeting my requirements: the Sony Mavica FD97, and the Olympus C-2100UZ. Both have a 10x optical zoom and image stablization. Both are 2 megapixel cameras. In the end, though, what led me to the Olympus was what it DIDN'T have: bulk and weight. The Sony is a huge, bulky, battery-eating thing built around a floppy drive and weighing several pounds. The Olympus is a sveldt camera weighing in at slightly over 1 pound complete with batteries and all.

I got my Olympus at CompUSA for $493. Fry's had already sold out on them -- apparently they've been discontinued and replaced with a much less capable camera. I then went to Fry's and bought an extra set of NiMH batteries for it. It uses standard AA NiMH batteries and comes with a battery charger for NiMH batteries as well as a set of batteries. It takes four batteries total. I also bought a 128MB SmartMedia card for $42 at that time, since the Olympus came with a puny 8MB SmartMedia card.

The 128MB card will hold over 250 pictures at 1600x1200 resolution! That's 10 rolls of film, or around $50 worth of film. Add in another $50 for photo processing, and that's $100 worth of pictures being held by that $42 card -- and the card can be re-used after I download the pictures to my laptop, unlike the film.

Downloading Pictures

At first I downloaded using Windows. But of course I could not let that continue. So I did a web search and found the 'gphoto2' project for Linux. This is apparently the next generation of the gphoto product.

Note that gphoto2 is still under development. It does not have a GUI yet. But it works great with the Olympus. You can get gphoto2 from: www.gphoto.org. You will also need libusb. You can get libusb from: libusb.sourceforge.net.

I am using this software on Red Hat 7.2, so I already have USB drivers installed. My laptop has a USB port. So I used the USB cord that came with the camera, plugged it in, turned on the camera. I could then list the pictures currently on the camera with:

   gphoto2 --port usb -f '/DCIM/100OLYMP' -L

I could download all the pictures to my laptop with:

 
  gphoto2 --port usb -f '/DCIM/100OLYMP' -P

And finally, I could delete them off the camera with:

  gphoto2 --port usb -f '/DCIM/100OLYMP' -D

Camera Quality

There's a lot of reviews out there on the web about this camera, most by people who know more about photography than I do. The only reason I write this is to assure people that this is a good camera that is Linux-compatible. The biggest complaint any reviewers have is the lack of a "shoe" for a SLR-style flash. It does, however, have a plug on the side for a professional-style flash. The built-in flash does a decent job -- the picture of the box that is at the top of this review (click it for the bigger picture) was taken with the flash, using the zoom to zoom in from about 6 feet away (good flash distance), in a darkened room. It works.

Conclusions

It's a good camera, it's one that will last years (I can never foresee needing more than 1600x1200 resolution for photos bound for the web!), it has a zoom that is to die for, it works with Linux, and it's relatively inexpensive when you consider how much film and photoprocessing costs (and how much your time for scanning pictures into computers costs). The only consumables in the camera are the batteries, and they are standard rechargable batteries that you can buy for $12 per set at any electronics store. I foresee years of service. I did not buy a digital camera earlier because none had all the features that I wanted at a price that was reasonable. The Olympus C-2100UZ is perfect proof that good things come to those who wait. We live in amazing times, and the C-2100UZ is just another product of those amazing times for those of us who look around in awe at what has happened over the past few years, where even today's cameras have more memory in them than room-sized mainframes had only fifteen years ago.

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