Olympus Camedia C-2500L

This is one of the very few digital SLR cameras on the market, and the two primary advantages of this are immediately obvious. First, it lets you see exactly what the camera sees, so you'll end up with the pictures you wanted; and second, because there's no need to use the LCD panel, you'll save juice on the batteries.

From an aesthetic point of view, there's something inherently more satisfying about looking through the lens rather than at the display, and this is enhanced by the Camedia's shutter sound, giving the impression of it being a solid, reliable camera. Another innovation is offering the choice of either CompactFlash or SmartMedia storage in the same unit, and for unbeatable capacity you can even use both at the same time.

A small button to one side of the lens pops up an internal flash, while a hot shoe on the top will accept an independent flash unit, making this a versatile choice for the more professional user.

Digital professionals should also be impressed by the output. We tested it under a number of lighting conditions, both indoor and outdoor, and the results were among the best we have seen. There were vibrant colours, even under fluorescent light or dull exterior lighting, and realistic skin tones.

The C-2500L is a 2.5 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom and a 2/3in progressive CCD. Its macro mode allows you to take images from as close as 2cm and its versatile settings allow for five image qualities from a single, non-compressed 1,712 x 1,368 image filling the supplied 8Mb SmartMedia card, down to around 50 VGA-sized pictures. The uncompressed super-high-quality image is stored in TIFF format, while those of lower quality are compressed JPEG format.

White balance setting can be left in the hands of the camera or adjusted manually through six colour temperatures, while the Olympus lens is equivalent to a 36-110mm lens in a conventional film camera. To achieve specific focal lengths, the aperture can be set manually and it can mimic conventional film settings with equivalents for 100, 200 and 400 ISO.

Egotists will welcome the chance to be in their own images - this camera has a 12-second delay and even a remote control, eliminating the need to click and run and allowing you to adjust the zoom. The camera's software suite is simple to use, allowing you to drag images off the camera and drop them straight into directories on the PC or network, but with only a serial connection it was painfully slow to get our larger images out.

This serial cable is supplemented by a converter for use with a Mac, although we would have liked to have seen USB. It would not only have been faster, but would also have provided cross-platform connectivity with just one lead.

The C-2500L has a 1.8in TFT for displaying your images, and once you have activated the shutter, the image you have taken is displayed for a few seconds while it is written to media. It is also used for deleting images on-the-fly and adjusting the camera's settings.

The camera runs on four AA batteries. Rechargeable batteries and a charger are included as part of the package.

We were impressed by the C-2500L: the inclusion of slots for both CompactFlash and SmartMedia memory is a move we would welcome in more cameras. The benefits of SLR in a digital camera were also evident when we examined our photos, which were not only sharp and vibrant but also centred on exactly what we hoped the camera would see.

It is difficult to choose between this camera and the Sony 505, for while the Sony had an excellent lens array and produced images every bit as good as the Olympus, its Memory Stick format is not yet as widely used as the SmartMedia and CompactFlash options seen here. Ultimately, though, at over £300 cheaper, the Sony just pips it to the post, but Olympus still earns itself top marks.

Contact Olympus 0800 072 0070