Home > Consumer Reviews > Olympus Camedia C-5060 5.1 MP Digital Camera w/4x Optical Zoom

I've had the 5060 about three weeks and have had great luck taking pictures. Pictures are high quality, good color and good exposure with just auto setting.

The menu was not that tough to get used to (bark is worse than the bite), plus, there are special short cut buttons for common features (like flash settings or ISO) where you press one button and the jog wheel gets you right to the feature setting you want.

I love the tilt LCD and the solid feel in my hand. I sometimes forget to take the lens cover off, but the cover design lets the cover pop-off with no problem. This is better than the 5050.

I think the wide angle improvement (27mm) made the lens ap. drop from 1.8 to 2.8, but I'm not sure. I would have preferred the 1.8, but I love the 27 wide angle with no attachment necessary. All the other cameras I looked at had a 2.8 also (including Nikon 5400, Canon G3 and G5).

The 5050's 1.8 lens was the exception. Even with the 5060's 2.8 ap., I have taken great indoor shots. Really! I just printed a beautiful Christmas picture I took in front of the tree. Yes, I used wide angle rather than tele, but aren't most indoor shots at wide angle anyway? I try to zoom with my feet indoors to get the widest angle possible, and the 5060 beats almost every other camera with wide angle (except the 5400), but, the 5400 doesn't have a low light auto focus assist. The 5060's low light auto assist seems to do the job!

BTW, the movie feature works great, too! I did not buy the 5060 to take movies, but it is easy to use and the movie quality is excellent, even in dim light. You can take as long a movie as you have room on your card, too.

I also love the included remote. The remote is better than the timer, but it has a timer, too.

I would buy the 5060 again, but if I had a 5050 I would be happy too. Happy New Year!

Note to readers: You will find updates at the end of this review, which was written about a few weeks earlier. It is not entirely happy reading.

-----------

I've been very happy with Olympus digital cameras, having gone through several generations of them. Facing some work which required wide-angle capability I upgraded from my 2020z so I could use my wide-angle conversion lens, giving me a 35mm camera equivalent of about 19mm when needed.

In terms of photographic quality, the results I am getting from this camera are nothing short of spectacular. Great sharpness and resolution that, as some reviewers have pointed out, are virtually as good in the standard HQ mode as in SHQ and TIFF. Fast shutter. Many exposure options. Very little noise. The camera is significantly larger than my 2020, but the build is solid and comfortable -- making steady shots a lot more likely. I also like the menu system, and the various convenience buttons offer a lot of adjustments that do not require going deep into it. Though some users have noted that the lens is significantly slower than that on the 2020 and 4000, I have had some good luck with low light situations, and when things get pretty dim I increase the ISO settings, with good results. No problem there. I find this a fair trade off for wide angle capability. I also like the tilting and swiveling LCD (more flexible than on the 5050). It's bright and filled with useful information, so I use it all the time, though a 'my mode' setting allows me to power up without it in a pinch.

OK, some quibbles. First, there is the mode dial failure issue, which some reviewers have noted -- and which is the subject of a Yahoo group and a fine Wrotniak article. Whether Oly has worked this problem out, what the failure rate is, etc. are not clear, and until I am persuaded that my production line was clean I will have a little 560 in the bottom of my bag in case of failure -- something I would generally do anyhow, particuarly since the 560 gives extremely fine results and runs forever on rechargeable CR-V3's.. What does bother me is the silence of Olympus on this matter. They have not satisfactorally explained the situation to many who have asked, and they haven't had the courtesy to respond to some questions I put to them. Anyone who invests in a product of this quality deserves a response, and as a long-time Oly user and advocate I am extremely disappointed and have the sneaking feeling there is a real problem here that should be resolved by a recall. After all, some of us rely on this camera in our work and if there is a problem want to have it fixed on our calendar.

Speaking of the mode dial, the on-off switch is just below it and I have found that it is simply too easy to move the mode dial when turning the camera on and off, an unhappy situation if one is in a hurry. Bad design. Wear gloves? You're cooked.

Another quibble is that Oly has eliminated a slot for SM cards in favor of microdrives which few Oly users use. I have pile of SM cards and would have liked that option (in addition to the CompactFlash and xD). They have it on the 5050.

Ok, as for the battery issue. I borrowed a friend's Oly 5050 which runs on AA's and though the NiMh's I used were fresh I could squeeze no more than 60-80 shots out of the camera (using LCD; and remember that NiMh's have a fast discharge rate which means that when you need them they may be sorry shape to power a workhorse like this) before having to change batteries (this is about the same as with my 2020z). Using the 5060's proprietary battery (and others I picked up from third party resellers for as low as $7.00 each -- they work perfectly) I'm easily exceeding that, and can do almost a full day's shooting without worry. In addition to finding cheap Oly compatible batteries I found a marvelous rapid charger for less than $20 which cuts charging time by about 2/3rds. I've thus been able to cut the long cord on my OLY OEM charger back to a few inches, giving me a tiny little charger to put in the bottom of my gadget bag for travel. Yes, it would be nice to have the AA option in a pinch, but Oly makes a battery holder that uses two of the camera's very small batteries, and if one can pick up spare ones that work perfectly well for seven bucks (cheaper than four decent NiMh's), why not buy a few and just be sure one is in your pocket when you go off on a shoot? By using a proprietary battery Oly has also improved battery loading very significantly (my 2020 latch cover is a bugger, and more than once I've spilled batteries on the floor when changing them at night or in a hurry).

My conclusion is that this is a fine camera that has a design flaw or two, and may or may not have a serious one that requires factory repair -- and should get some honest speaking from Olympus, a reputable company that has a fine product line. One needs to go into the battery situation with eyes open, but by no means is it required to purchase Oly branded batteries or chargers for backup. Given the extra power and fine results I'm happy. So far....

-----> new comments:

The camera died yesterday. I had done a relatively full day of commercial shooting and it had behaved beautifully. Brought it home, changed the battery, offloaded my data and set the camera down for a couple of minutes while I went off to get a cup of coffee. Came back and, voila, dead as a doornail. Checked out various contacts and pulled the battery to see if the camera would reset (occasionally my trusty 2020 would freeze up, but would unfreeze very suddenly after about 20 minutes of batteryless rest). Left the battery out all night and 16 hours later took it and camera over to a nearby camera store where I do a lot of business. They noticed the 5060 had died with lens fully extended and that it would not respond to an ac adapter. Alas, it is in the mail and Olympus sez they will turn it around within a week (not holding my breath on that folks). (note: I've learned that it may take as long as ten days for this camera to reset itself. Unlike some earlier models, it has a little battery or some other voltage holding device which allows users to recharge batteries or protect settings for a long time without a battery. The good news is this feature can save a lot of pain, the bad is that it there is a problem not fixed by the factory reset function you may have to wait quite awhile to find out if your camera is actually dead or just in a deeper than usual sleep).

It does seem to me, having read quite a bit and having had this experience, a rare one in my Oly experience, that there must have been both shortcuts and maybe some truly untested bits and pieces in the manufacturing process that are causing problems to what would seem like quite a few people. These problems, as in my case, come after about two months of fairly heavy usage. Sure, covered by warranty, but I now have to backfill and the camera I hoped to have with me on a forthcoming trip will probably be on a workbench somewhere. Or Oly will send me a new one and two months from now....well lets see, but I suspect this is not the end of the saga. Hmmmm, those new Canons and Nikons are looking better and better.

End of story (for now?)

Olympus did as it promises and got my camera back to me about two weeks after they logged it in. Actually, my post office track told me they had the camera several days before actually logging it into their system, but from what I can learn there is nothing new about that. Calls to customer service to check on the camera were all but useless -- unfriendly and sometimes difficult (due to language spoken by agent). The technical report indicates that three circuit boards were replaced, suggesting some kind of catastrophic failure (which also managed to kill my memory card).
The camera is now working pefectly and my fingers remained crossed. My dealer tells me the turnaround time is about the best in the industry. I wish I knew more about checks they ran on the camera and whether there was a firmware upgrade, etc. but one can't have everything. It still puzzles me that such a fine camera just imploded, but I do see a lot of BMW's and Mercedes by the side of the road these days!

Before buying this camera I seriously considered the Sony DSCV1. My daughter has the Sony DSCP10, and it seemed a good idea to share accessories. However, research made me decide that the Sony had serious problems--short battery use in the camera (with a battery that sometimes wouldn't hold too many recharges) and a viewscreen that sometimes conked out the minute the warranty (90 days for this part) was up.

I chose the Olympus C5060 because the lens is approximately equivalent to the Sony DSCV1 and most of the other high-end lenses out there for this type of camera. Not as bright as the renowned C5050, but respectable. I've used Olympus 35mm cameras, (and a very early digital) and I personally have liked them very much--they just feel right in my hands. This particular model has a mostly-metal (lightweight magnesium) body, which feels quite sturdy.

Good stuff:

1. Batteries are the same as for the digital SLR camera--good for a lot of shots (about 400-600 in "normal" conditions) between charges.

2. You can personalize nearly all camera settings, from power-up to viewing, to shooting, to power-down. "My Mode" allows you to save special photo settings that you use frequently--flip to it, and everything is the way you like it. Manual, AP and SP modes, too. And the P setting allows point-and-shoot no-brain photography.

3. While too chubby to be pocket-sized, the camera is compact and lightweight.

4. Dual slots for media storage--Olympus proprietary and generic CF. You can switch between them and use them both.

5. Quick shutter response time--almost like a film camera!

6. LCD viewscreen turns in against the camera back when not in use--nice protection feature.

Bad stuff:

1. Long charge time (6 hours--i.e. overnight) for that long-life battery. I can live with it... A second battery runs about $100.00, by the way. This is a heavy-duty item!

2. Lens tube is plastic--probably identical in construction to all C series cameras. (There's a metal rim so that plastic isn't exposed when the camera is closed--except for the lens cap.)

3. No 5050 lens, alas... Will we ever see 1.8 again?

All in all, I'm glad I got this camera instead of my original choice.

Let me say up front that I take a LOT of ambient light and/or super-wide angle photos, so I'm not ready to toss my 35mm gear yet. I have thought that digital is for Pascal Programmers - every 'bug' is a 'feature.' However, after owning several cheaper (2 Mpx) digital still cams, I finally felt this one was worth taking the plunge - and I'm not disappointed.

The camera is smaller than it looks in pictures, controls are well-placed, and it feels solid. The menus are not totally intuitive, so you do have to look at the manual. Picture quality is everything, and IMHO, the Oly 5060 is currently the best thing going. Nice sharp images with good color and low noise. Once set up, it comes closest to printable images right off the card (fiddling with Photoshop will always make them 'better' of course . . .)

Others have noted the 'slow' lens, so I bought the FL-20 flash, which is nice by any standard - smaller than a deck of cards and adequate for living-room-size venues. Expensive - well over $100 - but the option is to get a cheap flash and fart around with 'manual' mode whenever you want to use it. Really - do you want your $600 camera, or your $35 flash controlling the exposure?

I Also got the WCON-07C wide angle lens attachment, which turned out to be surprisingly huge - the objective is almost 4" across and blocks the built-in flash (which is fairly worthless anyway). I know true rectilinear was too much to expect - there is some barrel distortion with the built-in lens at widest, and the converter lens makes it a -lot- worse. Still, a digital still cam with 99 degree angle of view is pretty cool, barrel distortion be damned.

Ok, to wind this up:

PROS: 1) Outstanding Picture Quality, at middle zoom ranges
2) Smaller than it looks in the ads, and easy to handle
3) Nice flash and wide / tele conversion lenses available.
4) Camera itself pretty reasonable on price / quality basis.
5) 32Mb storage - more than most - included (xD card).
6) Also takes Compact Flash cards.

CONS: 1) Distortion at widest angle
2) Must buy additional $35+ part to attach accessory lenses.
3) You need the nice little flash & its pretty expensive.
4) What? ANOTHER media card format..??

Overall, this is a nice, nice camera, subject to the tradeoffs inherent in all digital cameras. Very Good image quality at mid-range focal lengths. For impromptu images in tight locations, you need a wide angle - for less money, I could have gotten a fast <20mm lens for my 35mm system - but if you want wide and digital, you are going to find that life is full of little trade-offs, and this is the most bang for the buck right now.

I've had the C-5060 for about a month and I love it. The quality of the photos is excellent. I'm very happy with the built in flash which is MUCH more powerful than the one in my Kodak DC4800. I also like the fact that I can control the intensity of the flash.

Yes it uses a proprietary battery, but I've taken hundreds of photos with flash on one charge. I will admit that I've purchased two spare batteries just in case.....

The menus are not difficult to use, although there are so many features that I've only just scratched the surface on it's capabilities. The User Manual on CD is 289 pages! The camera has lots of "one touch" buttons that allow you to set features without needing to navigate through menus.

All told I'm very happy with this camera and don't think I'll be looking to buy a replacement for many years to come.