Olympus FE-310: Good Pocket Camera, If You Don't Mind Batteries

The Olympus FE-310 is by no means a great shooter, but for the price and features it offers, the camera does quite well. A compact, AA battery -powered digital camera that comes in several different colors, the FE-310 is 8.0 megapixels with a 5x optical zoom, a rarity among digital point and shoots in this price range.

Most of the FE-310's competitors, such as Nikon's COOLPIX L series and Canon's Powershot A series only offer 3x or 4x optical zoom with anywhere from 6 to 8.1 megapixels. Image quality is average, with pictures turning out better with outdoor lighting than indoor lighting. For most applications the camera does well on automatic settings, and the one area it impressed me is the super macro function.

Typically, the macro functions on most cameras don't do very well focusing up close, but the FE-310 has two macro modes; the super macro mode allows you to shoot your subject from less than an inch away perfectly. Another area where the camera shines is the user interface Olympus designed for its newer cameras. The FE-310 has an Exposure Compensation mode that conveniently allows you to see four views of your subject in varying degrees of exposure values.

You can select which value looks best on screen rather than adjusting EC values and then seeing the change on screen. Another user feature exclusive to Olympus is their on-camera shooting guide, a nice systematic walk through in setting the camera up correctly to take pictures based on the current shooting conditions. For the most part, it gives accurate directions and will even set some of the settings for you, but it won't do everything. If this will be your first camera however, you'll appreciate this feature. As common as most other cameras, there also preset scene modes that allow you to shoot pictures based on conditions like if it is sport, landscape, portrait, et cetera. There's also facial detection, which gives focusing priority on a person's face first. The digital image stabilization comes in handy for quick moving subjects or in low lighting conditions, and cuts down on blur caused by camera shake. A movie mode records video at 30 frames per second with sound at 640x480 resolution and in the .AVI file format.

No camera is picture perfect, and the FE-310 falls short in several areas. The camera has a maximum ISO setting of 640, which means camera will do poorly in low light. A higher ISO setting allows the camera to be more sensitive to light, and thus better performance in dark conditions. Some of the buttons are small, and may be hard to use for those with big fingers or unsteady hands. The image stabilization mentioned previously only works with good lighting, as the camera compensates for shake by increasing shutter speed and ISO setting. Although the screen on the back is clear and sharp, it lags slightly when you move around and may be hard to see in bright light. Battery life can be abysmal, as this camera eats through alkaline batteries. I recommend using photo lithium or rechargeable batteries. The camera has onboard memory of 21MB, which only stores a few photos or a short video. You will certainly need an xD-type memory card in order to use the camera's full capabilities. xD card may be harder to find than SD or Compact Flash cards, and using anything other than Olympus xD cards may cause problems.

For the price bracket it's in and features it offers, the Olympus FE-310 is quite capable. Most retailers offer it red, orange, silver or black; there is also a kit available that has a case and rechargeable batteries with charger. If short battery life doesn't bother you, and having a shooting guide at your fingertips sounds appealing, the FE-310 is a good buy.