Olympus Digital Cameras

D400/D450/D460/D490

User Tips

 
This article refers to the pre-USB model D series Olympus Digital Cameras
Related Sections
Olympus Cameras
Cameras
Photography Books
Cameras
Classic Cameras
Nikon Cameras
Photography
Underwater Photography
Images of War
Bird Photography
Erotic Photography
Ansel Adams
Other Subjects
Posters
Art Posters
Photography Posters

 
 
 

Dropbears.com
 
 

 

If you're anything like me, you go by the adage "If all else fails, read the manual". Well, unless you're already fairly familiar with digital cameras, I suggest you do read the manual first. It is not very clearly laid out, but if you just go through each section and practice what it says with the camera at hand, it will become obvious in an hour or so that the device really is very easy to use - and is quite capable of producing magnificent results.

A couple of things not obvious in the user manual:

Smart card ejection
The manual refers to "ejecting the smart card" more than once. From this, one would assume there is an eject button. Don't bother looking for it, there isn't one. Pull the card out by hand - you'll need a fairly firm grip. With the camera facing you, on the left there is a small door. Open this to reveal the smartcard. On the inside of the door is a small diagram indicating which way to insert the card - it can go in upside down if you're not careful.

Image uploads
Although it's quite easy to upload the images directly from the camera, you'll find it well worth your while to install the software to use the 3-1/4 floppy adaptor. Once installed, this enables you to upload at a much faster rate, without plugging any cables in, and without using up those AA batteries. I don't think the manual mentions that you can delete images from the card directly from the computer  - another advantage of using the adaptor.

If you're wondering about the reason as to why I've gone to the trouble of giving the camera so much attention - apart from the fact that I have one myself, of course - here it is: I've been a photographer for over 30 years, and have been fiddling with digital cameras for quite some time. You probably didn't know that Canon brought out a unit not much different in concept to the D400 some 10 years before its release - well, they did, but it was frightfully expensive and rather clumsy to use, although the images were quite acceptable. In my studio I have a $10,000 analogue video camera I adapted to make (what were then) high quality digital images. It's gathering dust now - the D400 does a better job!
 

Olympus D-460 Zoom Digital Camera
Features: 
1.8-inch color LCD viewfinder, 1280 x 960 resolution 
Realtime rapid shooting mode
3x Olympus f 2.8-4.4 optical zoom
8 MB 3.3V SmartMedia memory card holds up to 122 images 
Olympus D400 digital camera

Changing Resolution.
Standard setting is low resolution (120 images on an 8 meg card). Much higher quality images may be produced at HQ resolution.
Turn the camera on by opening the lens door. Press the menu button - the LCD screen should display. Press the menu button again, twice. This should bring up the resolution screen. Set the resolution to HQ by pressing the + (plus) button. Press the OK button.