Introduction

We have a long history with Olympus. Years ago, one of the first mirrorless cameras I purchased was the Olympus OMD EM5. If you’ve read a few of our reviews on this site, you’ll know that we hold Olympus and Micro Four Thirds in pretty high regards.

Having skipped by the 4/3 DSLRs, I had not had a reason until recently to start looking into that direction. Maybe “reason” is the wrong term…I still don’t have a good reason, per say – other than I am experimenting with older gear and comparing it to the modern technology we have today.

I did dip my toe into 4/3 Olympus DSLRs with an E-300 – you know – to check out those tasty CCD sensors and all…but for now – we’ll keep the “digicam” theme going and talk about a used C-8080 that I just got not too long ago.

We’ve checked out the Konica Minolta DiMage A2, the Sony F828, and the Sony DSC R1 which are all roughly from the same time period. The C-8080 was the last of that class that I thought would be a worthy play thing.

What will we find with the 7.1 – 35.6mm f/2.4-3.5 (28-140mm field of view) lens and 8mp 2/3″ sensor?

Disclaimer – sample images represent was is possible to get from this specific camera and lenses used. The images are not straight from camera JPG and have most likely been post processed in Lightroom or other software to get them to the vision I wanted.

Tech Stuff

Body

Picking up this body, you feel the quality construction right off the bat. The metal construction is apparent in the feel…but it is not overly heavy. There is some plastic here, but I could not find any creaking or flexing of consequence anywhere. Many claim that this body is premium in comparison to the other bridge cameras from the early 2000’s – and they are correct. Out of all the cameras we’ve tested from that era, this Olympus is #1.

The used copy I received did have a minor issue with the rubber grip part coming off, but nothing that will cause any issues and should be an easy fix.

There is a deep thumb groove for your right hand and that in conjunction with the grip in the front gives you a positive hold on the camera. The front grip is not as deep as some of the other cameras from this era, just as an FYI.

Littered with buttons, most things you’ll want to get to can be accessed via a button and rear command dial. Oddly, ISO is not one of them and you have to go into a menu to get to it.

Dials. There are only 2 dials on the camera, a top mode dial and one on the back by your thumb. Both easy to find and utilize for their intended purposes.

Buttons. There are a lot of buttons.

On the top plate, just behind the shutter release is the wide to telephoto rocker switch, the power button and a customizable button.

On the back of he camera is a d-pad with 4 buttons and a center OK/menu button. Above that cluster is a quick view button to check the last image you took. Below the cluster is the viewfinder/LCD toggle button and the CF/xD card toggle button.

On the left side of the camera you have the button for white balance and changing the image capture sizes, the focus mode button, exposure compensation, flash compensation and exposure mode. To use these, you press and hold the button and then turn the rear command dial to change the options.

First ding on the C-8080 – the buttons on the left side are way too easy to accidentally press in when holding the camera in portrait orientation. I often found that when I wanted to change the aperture when shooting in aperture priority mode, my finger or palm was holding a button down and I was changing the wrong settings.

Shutter Release – The shutter release is springy and you can definitely feel the stop where focus activates. Just a bit more pressure and you have the shutter tripped. It is in a bit of a different position and angle, being more flat to the body than many other cameras. It does fall naturally under the index finger.

Rear LCD – Honestly, it is not that bad. I would not say it is great and I would not trust it for proper exposure or focus, but it is much more usable than the DiMage A2’s screen. You can turn on exposure aids and they do work well enough. Both exposure aids work on the EVF and the rear LCD. One is the standard histogram, while the other is called “direct” in the menu. This option overlays boxes onto the screen to show blue for underexposed areas and red for overexposed areas. I actually quite like it – kind of an early version of the classical video “zebras”. Both the histogram and the “direct” boxes go away when you half press to actuate focus so as to not be in the way of final composition.

It is not fully articulating, but it does tilt down some and up to lay flat. Better than nothing!

Flash

This camera does have a built in flash. It sits right on top of the EVF and to the left of the hotshoe.

Viewfinder

The viewfinder is pretty equivalent to the rear LCD in usage and I was very happy to use it. Perfectly fine for its age…again, would not trust critical sharpness or exposure to it alone, but does provide a bit of a WYSIWYG view.

Weather Sealing

Honestly not sure about the weather sealing on this camera, but given it’s status at the time, it probably has none…but I do not intend on bringing this into a downpour. I doubt a light rain would affect it, but please make your own decisions on how you treat your gear.

Lens

At 7.1-35.6mm on the 2/3″ sensor, you have a lens with a field of view of 28-140mm. Aperture range wide open is a respectable f/2.4 at the wide end and f/3.5 at the telephoto end.

Usable wide open as well! Gets sharper as you stop down just a little bit but not technically required.

Going from 28mm to 140 is as easy as pushing or pulling the rocker switch that sits right behind the shutter release.

Macro mode is very good too, you can get quite close to your subjects.

The lens is motorized and if I were to ding this camera again, it would be here. I would have much preferred an analog zoom like that found on the Dimage A2 or F828. Powered zooms may make sense for controlling the camera remotely, but that is not a consideration here.

Olympus claimed that the lens was built to the same quality as the 4/3 lenses made for their E series DSLRs of the time.

I can confirm that this is indeed a fantastic lens, capable of pulling some very nice details from the sensor! Initially, I shot in JPG and those were easy to sharpen up from the base settings (sharp = 0). Will do further testing with some RAW files as well to see how that works out in post processing.

The lens is noisy upon startup and zooming – you can hear the motors and gears as it moves in and out.

Performance

Overall System Performance

Released in 2004, the C-8080 fires up pretty quick! It does remember the last position of the powered zoom and will go back to that upon startup. If at the widest zoom position (7.1mm or 28mm equivalent field of view) it will be ready to go in under a second. If at the longest position (35.6mm or 140mm equivalent field of view) it could take just under 2 seconds.

Everything works and works fast! Getting into the menus, no problem. Power up, quick and ready to shoot. Using the menus is a whole different animal, though, as they are not very intuitive and a little awkward to navigate.

A weird quirk – AUTO ISO is not available in aperture, shutter priority modes or manual mode. A shame as I usually shoot the majority of the time in aperture priority and would have loved to be able to take advantage. I’ll probably start looking at using this camera in program mode and then just do a program shift.

Autofocus

A unique setup for auto focus on this camera is the fact that Olympus enabled a hybrid contrast and phase detection auto focus system into this camera. Another item to note is that you can decide if you want contrast only or both!

Compared to modern cameras, this is pretty slow to auto focus, even with the phase detection enabled. It is comparable to other camera from the same generation, perhaps just a smidgeon slower compared to some.

AF Point Selector

Auto focus has 2 flavors – one that is similar to a modern equivalent to an automatic focus point detection called iESP and a more traditional “you pick the point and move it to where you want the focus to be” option denoted by the “Spot” option in the AF mode menu. You move the spot where to do the auto focus using the rear d-pad arrows.

Continuous

More testing here is needed, and given that this has a hybrid auto focus system, we will test this in more detail to see if it is even passably usable.

Manual Focus

There is no focus ring, so you need to use the rear d-pad arrows to move the focus from near to far. The LCD or EVF will punch in to the image to help with checking focus accuracy.

Battery and Battery Life

Boasting a large battery capacity and a CIPA rating in the 520 images mark, this camera should last you a good long time! During our testing, we found that the battery life was very good. I was out shooting for 2 hours and I did not see the battery meter move and I had the camera on the whole time. Took probably just under 100 shots too! Given the 2004 birthdate – this is indeed a fantastic feat of battery life. The copy of this camera I bought came with a second battery and that should be plenty for an all day outing.

Stabilization (IBIS/AS)

This camera does not have any stabilization of any kind. Slower shutter speeds should be taken into consideration and either brace the camera, use tripod or increase the ISO when the light levels dip down. The f/2.4-3.5 lens will help keep the ISO down and the shutter speed up, though for a while.

Ergonomics

For me, the size of a camera is important. There is a point of diminishing returns on size. You can only go so small before the controls are hard to reach and the camera is difficult to hold.

Feel in The Hand

I already mentioned that the camera feels solid. If a camera is too small it is hard to get to the buttons that are on the camera body. This camera feels very good to me for what it is. The grip is a bit small, but with the size of the lenses I’m using with it and the everyday carry nature of the camera, it does not feel too bad.

I can get to the buttons and dials pretty easily.

My whole hand fits the grip well, no fear of fingers falling off the bottom. You can get a positive grip on the camera for sure ,even with gloves!

It is quite easy to accidentally bump some of the buttons on the left of the camera and change a setting by accident – so be careful, especially if you are wearing gloves.

Image Quality

Much has been stated about the CCD and Olympus color science – does the C-8080 hold the tradition that many have come to love about the Olympus processing?

Lets start with talking about the limited ISO range. It goes from ISO 50 to 400 and AUTO ISO allows for the use of every ISO setting, but auto ISO cannot be used in every mode. Other cameras in this era often capped the auto ISO options to the slower end of the range, so it is odd that the cap for auto ISO is not there for the range – but in the modes you’d probably want to most use it (A,S,M), you cannot.

JPG have a lot of noise reduction applied and there is not an effective way of removing that from what Olympus is baking into the files. Best way to combat that is to shoot RAW. However, as you may have guessed – there is no free lunch here.

Shooting RAW takes a long time to clear the buffer and write to the card, sometimes up to 12-15 seconds to complete – at which time the camera is locked up.

RAW is our preferred method to get the most out of the sensor – you’ll want to decide for yourself if the slow save times are something you are willing to put up with to get the files with the most chance of pulling the best image quality.

With that being said – I found that I can get very good levels of detail even from the JPG. I shoot SQH JPG and add sharpening in post. RAW is a no go just from the lag in shot to shot speeds.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot to like about the Olympus C-8080. It has a fantastic optical lens, and the Olympus color science is loved by many, me included.

There are some handling issues and the slow auto focus may frustrate some. However, if you are willing to take the time to learn the camera and work around its shortcomings, the quick startup time, impressive image quality may be enough to sell you on it. I know it did me.

Will I go so far as to say this is better than the other options? No. Thankfully other cameras in this era all have unique features that separate them enough to make almost everyone happy. None are better – all are different.

Just know that for me, the menus and RAW shot to shot speeds stop me from making this camera a keeper for me. I’d much rather shoot with the Sony F828, DSC R1 or the Konica Minolta DiMage A2 – if we are talking about cameras from the same relative generation.

Final Verdict = Barely Recommended – with caveats!