OM SYSTEM Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80 QD CG Date 35mm Camera

I haven’t got my refund

Takes great pictures. Survives a drop onto the sidewalk (dropped from 2 feat from a bench). Handles rain no problemo. Still takes great pictures. Small size is great and it's easy to use. The editor review says battery compartment is hard to open -- It is unintuitive by the arrow direction (it looks straight), but look at the hindges and you'll figure it out. The viewfinder is tiny, but it works just fine. The camera's small size lets you get 2-3 extra pictures from a 24 exposure roll becuase you don't have to roll out the film at all to cross the camera body :) It is so small that it fits in teh secondary compartment of the camera bag I bought along with it. The zoomer is cool. They say that it is 2.2x, but a 35mm with no zoom is .45x, so you are actually getting 4x zoom relative to a non-zoom 35mm wide angle point and shoot. This is the best bet for your money. If you want more zoom, go get a professional camera, but with that much money (over $200), its time to go digital. This is the perfect camera for me going to LA and shooting at the LA Galaxy (Soccer MLS) players.

I am pretty pleased with this purchase. The camera is really nice and seems pretty sturdy. My chief complaint though is that it is super slow opening up. Well, it seems really slow. Maybe I am a product of the instant gratification crowd, but it is a little annoying when you have the must take quickly picture opportunity. I guess you just get used to it. Overall, however, I am very happy with this purchase.

Just bought in January and the flash no longer works and photos come out dark. It doesn’t prop up properly or go off during the photo. The seller, manufacturer, and Amazon were all unable to help as it was no longer repairable and outside of the return window. Save your money and buy from a small business that has a good warranty instead. Local camera repair shops also told me they couldn’t fix the issue. I’m so upset at how short lived this camera was for the price I paid :(

Maybe this camera is too dated. It's quite large, it can barely be called a compact camera. Also, the maximum aperture is a mere F4.5, so it's a good idea to use high-speed film. On the other hand, the picture quality is excellent, with SLR-type quality. Genuinely much better than the results I can get from a similarly-sized digital camera, especially at the shorter end of the zoom. And the flash does a pretty good job. There's some red-eye, but in general it doesn't over-light scenes, the way most flashes do on small cameras. I had this camera for a number of years, and my friend still uses it. Over the years it's developed a few problems: it makes a grinding sound as the zoom extends (it hasn't broken yet, but I expect it will someday), and it can be a little tricky to open the door enough to activate the camera. Maybe the still-in-production Stylus Epic 2.8 lens is a better choice - there's no zoom but it has a faster lens, a smaller body, and slightly better picture quality.