The C-4040 Zoom sports an incredibly fast F1.8 - F2.6 lens with a 35mm equivalent of 35-105mm focal length. It is an all-glass, aspherical lens constructed of 10 elements in 7 groups. Further enhanced by a digital zoom function with 1 - 2.5x (5x VGA only) possible.

Auto or Manual focus with 240 steps and a magnified LCD display for critical focusing. Normal focus range is 0.8m - infinity and Macro mode 0.2m - 0.8m. New on the C-4040 is the rubberized grip around the lens barrel.

Add-on lenses and filters can be attached if you purchase the optional Olympus CLA-1 lens adapter. Shown here is the Tiffen equivalent, the OLYC2000AD. It comes with a 49mm to 55mm step up ring, using the larger diameter filters avoids vignetting when the lens is at the full wide angle. The adapter does block some of the optical finder's view when in wide angle position.

The C-4040 has a large and bright optical finder complete with a diopter control adjustment knob on the side.

The green LED indicates a focus lock and the amber LED tells you the status of the flash.

Built in multi-mode intelligent speedlight; Auto (automatic flash activation in low light and backlight), red-eye reduction, fill-in (forced activation), off (no flash).

Working flash range (at ISO 100):

wide angle 0.8 - 5.6 m.
Tele: approx. 0.2 - 3.8 m

External TTL connector control for Olympus FL-40: ON/OFF, auto, forced activation. Slow synchronization (first-curtain synchronization effect, second-curtain synchronization effect). When using the FL-40, the C-4040 Zoom can make use of its onboard focus assist illuminator and work in complete darkness.

The main advantage to an external flash is more range and to get the flash up and away from the lens to eliminate red-eye problems. It also lets you tilt and bounce the head for more natural looking subject illumination.

On top is the mode/power dial with positions for Playback, Off, Program AE, ASM (Aperture priority, Shutter priority or Manual - depends on which option is set in the menu system) and Movie mode. The shutter release has the zoom lens control mounted around it. The zoom lever also functions as the index and zoomed playback control while in play mode.

The monochrome data LCD is shown here with all possible icons illustrated. Unfortunately it is not illuminated - we will keep pointing this out until all of the manufacturers take the hint and add this much-needed feature!

On the back are the flash mode (delete in play mode) and metering/macro mode buttons (DPOF in play mode) next to the 4-way jog switch that is used to navigate menus and control various camera settings. The OK button accepts menu selections, calls up the menu and when held for longer than a second it enables the manual focus. The big button in the middle controls the color LCD, it also lets you quickly switch from Rec to Play mode when pressed twice.

The AEL button by default is the auto exposure lock in Record mode and is used to protect/unprotect pictures in Play mode. It is also the Custom Button and its function in Record mode can be user-defined for any of the functions shown above.

On the left side are the I/O ports:

DC INput for AC adapter or battery pack

A/V output, video is NTSC (PAL in European models), audio is monaural

High-speed USB data port

External TTL flash connector for FL-40

The C-4040 stores its images on 3.3v SmartMedia cards. On the back side of the handgrip is the card slot which is the "push in and pops out" type that makes removing cards a breeze. Olympus includes a 16MB card with panorama function and any size up to 128MB may be used.

The C-4040Z is powered by four AA size batteries (NiMH preferred but not supplied) or two of the Olympus CR-V3 one-use lithium. The battery door has a safety latch and thanks to the side by side design, battery changes can be swift.

Although they didn't include a set of NiMH rechargeable batteries, they did include the handy RM-1 infrared remote control. This allows you to control the zoom and trip the shutter in record mode and control playback while connected to a television.