Olympus D-40 Zoom Review

Record mode screen showing onscreen data overlay. Starting in the upper left corner the "A" indicates Aperture Priority, it can also be "P" for Program AE mode, "S" for Shutter Priority or "M" for Manual record mode. Shown onscreen is the aperture setting and shutter speed. The upper right corner is the EV exposure compensation factor (0.0). The green "46" indicates the number of pictures remaining at the current size and quality setting. The white rectangle tells you it is in single frame drive mode and the flash is disabled. The ISO is locked to 100, image size is 2288 x 1712 and the quality is SHQ.

This is Aperture priority mode, note the bar underneath of the aperture value, that indicates this is the setting to be changed. It works the same in shutter speed priority with the bar appearing below the shutter speed value.

New to any Olympus camera is the "My" exposure mode. You create your own set of custom parameters and then save it to be called up anytime the Mode Dial is turned to the My mode position.

The screen display when in Movie mode - note the little icon of the movie camera in the upper left. The green "282" indicates there is enough memory to record 282 seconds total of video. You can record up to 32 seconds of HQ (320x240 pixel) resolution QuickTime motion JPEG with audio at 15 frames per second. Or you can record up to 130 seconds of SQ (160x120 pixel) with audio at 15fps. Note that a 32MB or bigger SM card is required for this. The optical zoom can be used in movie mode but only if the sound recording feature has been disabled.

When manually focusing you get an onscreen display of the camera to subject distance (feet or meters is selected in the menu). When you alter the focus in manual mode it displays a magnified view onscreen which makes it a lot simpler to actually "see" the proper focus point.

Pressing the MENU button while in the AUTO (Point and Shoot) mode brings up a brief menu of options to enable the selftimer, set the image size (SHQ, HQ, SQ1 or SQ2), or enter Card Setup to format the SmartMedia card.

Pressing the MENU button while in P/A/S/M record modes will bring this shortcut menu overlay on the screen. From here you can quickly jump to the DRIVE modes, image size/quality or white balance settings. Choosing the MODE MENU option brings up the entire menu of record options as shown in the next series of animated screens.

CAMERA menu

- Off, Selftimer or Remote

DRIVE - Single, Multi, Multi-AF, or AE Bracketing

ISO - Sensitivity: Auto, 100, 200, 400

P/A/S/M - Select the mode for the P/A/S/M position on the mode dial

- Flash output power +/- 2 in 0.3 increments

- Flash slow-sync: Off, Slow1 (leading), Slow2 (trailing)

NOISE REDUCTION - Enable noise reduction for long exposures

DIGITAL ZOOM - Enable/disable digital zoom

FULLTIME AF - Enable/disable continuous autofocus

- Record 4-sec sound clip after picture, On or Off

PANORAMA - Panorama mode (only available with Olympus brand SmartMedia cards)

FUNCTION - Off, B&W, Sepia, White Board, Black Board

PICTURE menu

- Image Quality: TIFF, SHQ, HQ, SQ1, SQ2

WB - White balance: Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Incandescent, Flourescent or One-Touch custom

- White balance fine tune between Red and Blue.

SHARPNESS - From -5 to +5 in 1-step increments

CONTRAST - From -5 to +5 in 1-step increments

SATURATION - From -5 to +5 in 1-step increments

CARD menu

CARD SETUP - Format the SmartMedia card

SETUP menu

ALL RESET - Off or On: On resets all settings to default when power is turned off, the Off setting retains all current settings.

- Beep sound: Off, Low, High

SHUTTER SOUND - Off or choice of two different sound effects

PW ON SETUP - Select the screen and audio shown at power up

PW OFF SETUP - Select the screen and audio shown at power down