Olympus C-740 UltraZoom Review

By: Steve's Digicams

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Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom



Features and Controls




The C-740UZ employs an Olympus 10x zoom lens (38-380mm equivalent in 35mm photography), it is comprised 11 elements in 7 groups using ED (extra dispersion) glass lens to evenly distribute light across the camera's CCD sensor to create a sharp, even exposure for details and vibrant colors at distances near or far. 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.

    Standard AF 24" - Infinity (60cm - Infinity)

    Macro Mode 2.8" - 24" (7cm - 60cm)

    Super Macro Mode: 1.2" - 2.8" (3cm - 7cm) no optical zoom available





Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom

Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom

My favorite non-Olympus accessory is the OLYCAP, a spring-loaded slip-on lens cap that sells for just $9.50. You'll never have to deal with a "dangling" or lost lens cap again!



Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom

The eyelevel viewfinder is a 0.44-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 has a dioptric adjustment.



Olympus C-740 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 23 in. - 16.7 ft. and in Telephoto it's 23 in. - 12.4 ft at ISO 100. The flash charging time is approximately six seconds with fresh CR-V3 batteries.



Olympus C-740 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-740 Ultra Zoom

On top is the Mode Dial (AUTO, Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Night, 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).



Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom
The I/O ports are on the side:

Video Out for connection to television set. Video format is user selectable for NTSC or PAL.


USB 1.1 port for image downloads to the host computer


DC IN for optional AC power supply



Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom

Images and movie files are stored on the new xD-Picture Card. The camera comes with a 16MB xD-Picture card and is compatible with all capacity xD cards.


Quality Image Size 16MB xD-Picture Card (included) 256MB xD-Picture Card
OIE: SHQ, HQ 3200 x 2400 2, 8 shots 45, 136 shots
3:2 TIFF, SHQ, HQ 2048 x 1360 1, 8, 22 shots 31, 138, 363 shots
TIFF 2048 x 1536 to 640 x 480 1 - 16 shots 27 - 270 shots
SHQ, HQ 2048 x 1536 8, 20 shots 140, 326 shots
SQ1 (High, Normal) 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960 11, 49 shots 181, 799 shots
SQ2 (High, Normal) 1024 x 768, 640 x 480 26, 165 shots 431, 2663 shots




Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom

The C-740 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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