Olympus Reviews

By using a flash bracket and cord (of course you'll need one!), you can move the flash up and away from the lens. This will create a more natural appearance in the shadows of your subject. I have always had problem with flash photography, your wife may roll their eyes when they see you with an E-10, Bracket and an FL-40 ... but it really will make a big difference in your flash pictures.

On the E-10, this flash is completely automatic. It adjusts appropriately throughout the zoom range. The light spread is also extremely even from edge to edge, and in the corners. The only reason I don't give it 5 starts is that is hasn't the recycle speed of many flashes in this price range. But, you can't beat the quality at any price. I also love the pivoting head. Plus, it also works in tandem with the built-in flash. A real advantage.

I love this thing.

The FL-40 flash is the ONLY flash that really works correctly with the C-3030Z camera. If you buy it however be sure and also get the FL-BK01 handle and FL-CB01 cable! Since the 3030 doesn't have a hot shoe like the C-2500 does. (they'll set you back another $90 or so!) This flash upgrades your digital camera for some serious photography, it is adjustable in 30 degree increments for 270 degree pointing (full right to straight back going counter clockwise). Vertically it has five steps, 0, 45, 60, 75, 90 degrees (straight up). Comes with a "wide angle" lens (more disperse flash). Recharge time is ok with 4 NiMh batteries but I was disappointed at the lack of an external power jack. For long setups it would be nice to run from wall power. The on-board sensor works with the camera's flash in a zillion ways, the display is easy to read and setup is pretty straight forward. With the handle and flash the camera gets to be a bit bulky.

This lens came with a tripod mount and a couple of adapters, one of which fits my Olympus D-490 zoom. The adapters seem to work well but being plactic 'clip-ons' they're not very robust. The IPIX software doesn't work for the D-490 hi-res images but you can downsize the pix to make them 'fit'. Although more complex, Helmut Dersch's Panarama Tools are better but you will need to crop the images first.

This lens kit includes the fisheye lens, a couple of adaptors to Olympus point and shoot digital cameras (I use a D-460Z), and a tripod mount that positions the lens directly over the forward nodal point to eliminate parallax for panorama stitching. It works very well, especially considering the prices of standard wide angle lenses at ten times this price.

I recommend stitching with MGI PhotoVista (http://www.mgisoft.com) and take your photos with minimal or no compression such as TIFF mode (4 megs) and compress later for Web viewing top quality panoramas. Crop out the black "tunnel" with PhotoShop if you can afford it.

For panoramas it is critcal to get your nodal point directly over the center of the tripod to avoid parallax. Be sure your tripod head has the attachment screw directly centered. Many tripods don't do this and the offset will kill your stitching efforts. For more info see http://www.panoguide.com.

I don't know how it started but I somehow got it into my head that I needed one of these gadgets. After tracking down a shop which would let me demo one I handed over my cash and rushed home to try it out "properly" !

I already own a portable DVD player so I thought the Eye-Trek would be a great compliment.

The unit is pretty easy to connect up. The glasses connect to a small cigarette-packet sized unit. You then connect this to the video and sound outputs on your device (portable DVD player in my case).

You wear the Eye-Trek like a pair of shades - I have to wear prescription glasses and the Eye-Trek fits comfortably over these. The side arms also contain the earphones which you just unhook and place in your ears. The unit is quite light but I felt a bit of an idiot with my specs underneath (contact lenses might be better).

Press a button on the main unit and the display appears. You have to go through a warning message and a password screen.

I tried out a few DVD's to test the unit - Gladiator, Fantasia and Kevin and Perry Go Large.

First impressions were WOW!. It really did appear as if a huge projection screen was in front of me. The image was in focus and it felt comfortable quite quickly. I'm not sure if it really is 52" display but if felt like the picture was on the wall on the other side of the room.

After a few moments though I did start to think the image was a bit grainy - nowhere near TV quality. The colours were a bit faded but you can alter the contrast/brightness settings although it won't be perfect.

After a couple of films I decided to return the unit. For me, the lack of decent resolution was the main reason - it's just too grainy.

Also, there are just too many cables - a cable between the Eye-Trek and controller unit. You then have a video connection and left/right sound connections and a power supply lead and PSU. This is supposed to be portable !

I haven't given up on the Eye-Trek though. Olympus produce a high-end version which I have ordered and so will report back with my findings.

This is a great product when a tv is not available. I have used another model (fmd-20p) before. Great with my PS2. ... a great product.

I travel a ton - and got tired of people sitting next to me watching my movies on my portable DVD player (panasonic). Now I watch in total privacy and ignore everyone around me - it's perfect!

As for the display - it's just like watching a 51-inch screen from about 6 feet away (my best guess). Much better than squinting at the tiny screen on a portable or the airline screens. I look forward to my next roadtrip in a car as well.

I highly recommend the eye-trek, I've only had it for a couple weeks and have already fallen in love.

While the size is amazingly small it is still very uncomfortable and requires frequent adjustments while viewing. Picture quality is very low and not worth the price you will pay. Still better than any of the other HMD's. natralman@aol.com

I really like my Eye Trek. Needing to stay in bed a lot I can watch all my programs laying down. Can't wait to try this with my camera.

I own these glasses and they are great, the picture is amazing, and this is agreat way to watch a movie. I would recommend these glasses to anyone.

I bought an ES-10 a couple of years ago. It's good at the job, but, when I upgraded to XP it would not work. Olympus say it does not support NT or XP for the ES-10 and has no plans to. I now have to run a dual boot system (XP and ME) just so that I can use this one piece of hardware.

Now that XP has gone to the home market to replace 95, 98, SE and ME etc, Olympus ought to write a driver and not leave it's customer's in the lurch.

I had been looking for a way to take the boxes of slides I shot in my twenties and get them into digital form where I was more likely to actually look at them. And of course I also wanted to share them with the few people on earth who are actually interested in seeing my old slides.

When I looked at dedicated slide scanners like those from Nikon, it quickly became clear that these were professional devices that produced huge images for quality reproduction. They were also on the wrong side of $1000. General purpose flatbed scanners, on the other hand, weren't good enough to create a decent screen or printing image from such a tiny source.

The Olympus ES-10, at $400, is just about right. Not only does it produce good-looking images from slides, it can also accept negative strips like the kind you get back from the processor. From these it can make full-screen positives or larger images for printing with a good-quality inkjet.

The scanner comes in two variation, parallel and SCSI. I chose the SCSI because I figured it was faster and because I already have about three devices trying to share a single parallel port. You need your own SCSI adapter, as none is supplied. Also, the SCSI cable that comes with the scanner is suitable only for a Macintosh. If you are using it with a Windows PC, as I am, you will need to get a cable to match your SCSI card.

The software supplied with the scanner can be run stand-alone, to produce .bmp files (the only kind natively supported) or as a TWAIN device so that you can scan your slides directly into any number of image editors like the Adobe Photo Deluxe 3.0 that comes bundled. The TWAIN solution works out to be more convenient, since you don't end up with .bmp files that you are not likely to use again. Using TWAIN, Photo Deluxe or your own image editor can likely output to .jpg, .gif .tif and many other formats.

The scanner is very easy to set up and use. Easier than a flatbed in many ways. The only additonal consideration is focus, since there is no rigid bed to hold the original in a flat plane.

The TWAIN software lets you make basic resolution, cropping, exposure and color balance adjustments to the preview image. Then you press the scan button and you're done.

All in all, I'm very pleased. The images are clear, and it's good to see them again after all these years.

I have windows xp on my computer, scanner dont work with system.
I would have given it 0 if I could.

Olympus has decided to discontinue the manufacture of the ES-10 scanner. So, it did not develop a driver for Windows XP. Thousands of ES-10 owners will have to throw their scanner in the garbage.
Without a driver for Windows XP, the scanner is useless. Olympus supports its customers? Yeah, sure.

First the bad news: its driver supports Windows 95, 98, and ME. Now the good news: this is a serious film scanner. Unlike the new cheap film scanners or adapters for flatbeds, this unit scans at 2400x1600 resolution. This produces really high quality results; so much so that I hardly ever used it at the max res. The 35mm module accepts a six neagtive strip holder and a single slide holder (both included), and the motorized APS module allows you to drop in a cartridge and go!