Olympus Stylus Digital 400 Review

The Stylus 400 is equipped with an Olympus aspherical glass 3x zoom lens, 5.8 - 17.4mm (35 - 105mm equivalent in 35mm photography), 5 elements in 3 groups. It has a 4x digital zoom feature (5x at VGA resolution.) The maximum aperture is F3.1 (W) / F5.2 (T).

The TTL contrast-detect auto focus system covers from 20" to Infinity in normal mode and from 8" to 20" in macro mode. The lens retracts fully inside the camera when the lens barrier is closed.

The eye level viewfinder is an optical real-image type, there is no diopter adjustment. The two LEDs indicate focus and flash status.

The built in speedlight features Auto, Red-eye reduction, Fill and Forced Off modes. The flash range (at ISO 100) is 8" - 8.5' (W) / 8" - 6.0' ft (T). Flash recycle time is less than 6 seconds.

The camera is turned on by sliding open the lens barrier on the front. On top is a shutter release button, all other controls are on the back. Upper right is the zoom lens control which also functions as the magnified playback and index mode buttons when in play mode. The 4-way selector buttons are used to navigate menu screens and select images for playback. In record mode the "Up" button calls up the onscreen virtual Mode Dial (see page 3), the "Left" button toggles Macro focus mode, the "Down" button enables the Selftimer and the "Right" button selects the desired Flash mode. The QUICK VIEW button turns the color LCD on and off, enables the Quick View (review) mode and when the camera is turned off, it enables the normal PLAY mode. The OK button accepts menu selections and calls up and dismisses the menu system.

The Video Out port sends the video to a television set, the video format is user selectable for NTSC or PAL standard. Data I/O is via a Mass Storage compliant USB v1.1 port, no driver is required for Windows Me, 2000, XP or Macintosh OS 9.1+/OS X systems. An optional AC power adapter can be connected to the DC IN port.

Note the black rubber O-ring inside the I/O port door (shown below). Olympus states the camera is "weatherproof and is not damaged by water spray from any direction" as long as the rubber ring is intact and the I/O port door and the DC IN port flap is properly closed.   To learn more about the construction of the Stylus Digital's weatherproof body click here.

Still images and movie clips are stored on removable xD-Picture Card flash memory cards. Olympus supplies a 16MB size card. Olympus brand xD-Picture Cards are required to use the camera's builtin Panorama feature. 16MB to 256MB xD-Picture cards are now available.

Power is supplied by a LI-10B 3.7v 1090mAh Li-ion battery pack. Olympus does not specify the battery runtime. In our testing it was adequate for about 120-150 pictures (flash used 50% of the time, color LCD off.)

The included LI-10C charger lets you charge one battery while using another. Lithium battery packs can be charged or "topped off" at any time without shortening the service life of the battery.

Included is this RM-2 infrared shutter release that makes self-portraits a snap, no more running to beat the selftimer, just push the button when you're ready.