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Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom



Features and Controls


Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

The C-730UZ employs a newly designed Olympus multivariator 2 aspherical glass 10x zoom lens 5.9-59 mm (38-380mm equivalent in 35mm photography). It features a seamless Digital Zoom of 30x (10x optical and 3x digital combined). The aperture range is f2.8 - f8 (Wide angle) and f3.5 - f8 (Telephoto) and is adjustable in 1/3 EV steps.

The focusing system is an iESP AF (autofocus) TTL system using contrast detection. The default mode is a Multi area AF with a user-selectable spot AF option. Super Macro Mode: Up to 1.6" (4cm) no optical

    Standard AF 23.6" – Infinity (0.6m – Infinity) (W), 78" – Infinity (2m – Infinity) (T)

    Manual Focus: 3.9" – Infinity (0.1m - Infinity) (W); 47.2" – Infinity (1.2m –Infinity) (T)

    Super Macro Mode: Up to 1.6" (4cm) no optical zoom available

    Macro Mode 3.9" – 23.6" (0.1m - 0.6m) (W); 47.2" – 78" (1.2m –2m) (T)





Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

The eyelevel viewfinder is a 0.55-inch color EVF (Electronic Viewfinder) with full camera and exposure information displayed. It may be used for preview, review or menu operations the same as the large color LCD on the back. It does have a dioptric adjustment.



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

The manual popup flash has Auto (low and backlight), Red-Eye reduction, Fill-In, and Slow shutter sync modes. The working range in Wideangle is 3.93 in. - 18 ft. and in Telephoto it's 3.9 ft. - 14.4 ft at ISO 100.   The flash charging time is approximately six seconds with fresh CR-V3 batteries.



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

New on the C-730UZ is the external TTL connector for attaching the powerful Olympus FL40 speedlight. The FL40 has an effective range out to about 30 feet with a full bounce, tilt and swivel head. The flash has a motorized zoom head that follows the focal length setting of the camera's lens and is automatically controlled. The FL40 also has a powerful focus assist illuminator that lets you focus quickly and accurately in low-light or total darkness.



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

The three buttons across the top are: Selftimer/Remote mode button, it also serves as the Delete button during play mode. In the center is the Macro / Spot metering button, it functions as the Print Order button in play mode. On the right is the Flash mode button that doubles as the Protect / Unprotect button in playback.

On the back is a WideView 1.5" color TFT LCD monitor with 114,000 pixels of resolution, like the EVF it can be used for preview, review or menu operations. Control buttons: POWER turns the camera on and off, the AEL is the auto exposure lock or Custom function button in record mode, in Play mode it lets you rotate portrait mode images for proper display on a television set.

The 4-way selector is used to navigate the menus, change the shutter speed, aperture or exposure compensation values in record, in play mode it lets you select images for display. The button on the bottom controls the color LCD display, it is also used to quickly go from record to play mode for reviewing pictures. The OK button calls up the onscreen menus (see next 2 pages), accepts menu selections and enables the manual focus option.



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

On top is the Mode Dial (AUTO, Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Night Portrait, Movie, MyMode, A/S/M, Program AE, Play), shutter release with zoom control around it (which also functions as the thumbnail index and zoom control in play mode), to the left of the Mode Dial is the release button for the popup flash.



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom
The I/O ports are on the side:

DC IN for optional AC power supply

Audio-Video Out for connection to television set. Video format is NTSC (PAL in European models).

USB 1.1 port for image downloads to the host computer

Internal speaker

TTL external flash connector for FL40



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

Images and movie files are stored on either 3.3v SmartMedia cards or the new xD-Picture Card. The camera comes with a 16MB xD-Picture card and is compatible with all capacity xD and SM cards. The card slot is a dual-media design but only one type of card can be used at a time.


xD-Picture Card, photo (c) 2002 Steve's Digicams


The xD-Picture Card is in response to the needs of greater memory capacity, faster read and write times and lower power consumption. With initial sizes from 16 to 128 megabytes at introduction, and followed by 256 megabytes by the end of 2002 and larger sizes in 2003.



Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom

The C-730 UZ is powered by either two of the CR-V3 lithium batteries (supplied) or by four AA type NiMH rechargeable (highly recomended) or alkaline cells.






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