Olympus CAMEDIA C-800L: 27 YEARS later! RETRO review 

Their waterproof cameras were also some of the best around - I have reviews of them all at my cameralabs.com website

i have the FinePix XP50 from around 2012, it's 14 megapixels, and takes full HD video!! i love it so much

@@sparksfly13 nice!

Are you tempted to pick one up for old times sake? They're available quite cheaply on eBay...

Thankyou, glad to make a few in a row here.

Glad you enjoyed it! More to come.

Thanks Michael, and lovely to see you here!

Glad they got to have another outing! Try taking them out for a day's photography, it can be a fun project to work around their limitations. Kids also love them.

You're welcome!

Thankyou!

Why thankyou!

I don't remember their cameras, but I do remember their scanners...

I remember reviewing it, and fondly recall the lens too! Let me know how you get on with it,

That's a great question - I've no idea what the origin of the flower icon for macro is - it's always been there as far as I've noticed, but it had to start somewhere!

Thanks, and yes I have an E10 here waiting for some attention!

Thanks, and good luck! I used the same cable I did for my Apple QuickTake 100 video, so there may be more info there. I ordered it from eBay

I agree, the simplicity and form factor can be very appealing! Hope you find something fun!

@@DinoBytes Thank you Gordon.

99p!!! That's amazing! Let me know how you get on...

I guess the OG fix for this was not to have memory cards at all, so no door to worry about!

Heck, if you switched the Nikon D1 off while it was saving images to the card, it would immediately lose all power - and any images that hadn't finished saving to the card! The power switch was a real switch, not something that electronically suggested to the camera that it should shut off once it was ready to do so.

I know what you mean. When I buy or borrow these old cameras, I always find old photos on them, and contact the seller to see if they want me to send them! As for this camera, you will need 3 things: the cable, the software, and a 90's era computer, as described in the video. It's tough but not impossible.

I remember the P50! Hopefully you've seen my P1 retro review...

@@DinoBytes I have. Fairly similar design.

Yeah, SM card readers can be hard to find and in fact for roughly similar money you may be able to buy a newer Old,pus model which took SM and also has a USB port. So you use it as a card reader, but also get another camera to play with!

Yep, the XZ1 was a nice camera, I remember it.

What are you talking about? Olympus followed up with the XZ-2

I know, right?

Yes, the D800 series was fantastic. I'm actually planning a series of other videos exploring these more recent classics on my main channel, so keep an eye open!

It uses AA batteries which you charge outside the camera yourself. You don't charge them in-camera.

I was already making videos about them on RU-vid when they were new! Have a look at this vintage video from the archives! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Xcpqjssx9Bg.html

@@DinoBytes Oh, right! Thank you for the link, off to watch!

YES! I'd love to do one of the CD Maniacs. Hopefully you've seen my video about the floppy Mavica, which also mentions the CD versions at the end.

Yes, there was a big difference between the very first models and those even just a couple of years later. The first 2 and 3mp models were mostly pretty good.

@@DinoBytes I found these early Canon pocket cameras had very pleasing colors. A bit over-saturated but pleasing. My first DSLR was a Canon D30 3MP camera (bought years later when they became cheap). It also was not very impressive from the picture quality perspective. It too produced strange colors with some kind of a hue on the blue side. I tried them all. Next came the 10D, then the 20D. The 20D was the first DSLR I was kind of happy with, when it came to picture quality right out of the camera.

I'm still hunting down a QV10 for a future video!

@@DinoBytes I'm interested in seeing the QV3500 and QV4000 which I believe received excellent reviews at the time?

@@cmdrvex I always Strat with the first models in a series, so it'll be the QV-10 first, but I'll try to include more Casios later!

Lots of schools or people who needed images for newsletters, listings, real estate, used cars etc

Yeah, I think it's a little foggy too...

@@DinoBytes Was it fairly common to use plastic lens elements in those early low rez days?

@@POVwithRC some cameras certainly used them yes. Plus there were lots of third party companies building cameras or lens assemblies for other companies, so it was all over the place.

NICE! Have you used it yet? That one uses smart media, right? Did it come with a card?

​@@DinoBytes I have indeed. It did come with a 16 mb card, but with no cables. Luckily I have a Camedia C-3040Zoom with USB, so I can use that as a card reader. The photos came out super hazy/foggy, so today I disassembled the lens/shutter module and cleaned all of the lens elements. The lens element closest to the CCD sensor was almost completely gray, and it was on the "inside" (between two elements), so I had to pry the element off the thing it was attached to to be able to clean it. It was a daunting task, but the camera was borderline useless otherwise. I managed to put it back together without destroying anything, and the photos it produces now are surprisingly crisp! No haze at all! I wonder why it was like that tho. There were some photos on the memory card, dated mid 2005, which had the same haze issue, so clearly it had been like that for a while. I've noticed that some watch crystals also get this haze after a while. I wonder if some types of glass are "secreting" some sort of oil with time. I also notice that some of your images has a similar (albeit almost unnoticeable) haze. Like the image against the sky at 8:55. Maybe this issue is starting to happen to your C-800L as well? I don't know, but I'm super happy with the results from my cleaned C-840L.

@@krissjacobsen9434 I think you're right, I certainly see some foggy images from older cameras, so something is deteriorating in there. I'm really glad you got it back to life!

I remember visiting Jacobs and Jessops on new Oxford St...

@@DinoBytes Yup, Jacobs were there too, but I opened the first one on Upper Regent St, right by the BBC. Good times. And some amazing cameras too.

@@francochamps3855 ah yes, I remember there being one up there too - probably went in while I was working in Soho.

I used most of the old Olympus cameras at some point!

Oh, I see I told you about the camera already!

@@moviebod sorry, I did receive your message, but have been away!

Happy memories I hope!

​@@DinoBytes Got the cheaper no screen ‘400’ in my 2nd year on art school. Remember using it for a project where during an open house of our visual art department. It was located in a former factory and to outsiders might have looked quit ‘artsy’. At the entrance I gave the camera to visitors who came in and asked them to take pics and return the camera upon exit. There i loaded the pix (12 high res) onto a Mac that was displaying a slideshow of all the pics taken by visitors. After a while new visitors would only watch the slideshow and then leave without ever visiting the rest of the artist studios. Don’t think that project would have been possible without this sweet camera. For many visitors it was their first ever time using a digital camera.

@@BastiaanSlabbers nice! The screen less 400 is quite rare now... and it's funny to see some high-end digital cameras now toy with the idea of removing or hiding the screen!

@@DinoBytes Still have that 400 in my collection and last time i checked it still worked! (only no cable nor screen so no idea how to actually see the pix it takes).

@@BastiaanSlabbers I know, it's the leap of faith that makes it appealing - a bit like the Apple QuickTake 100.

I must try and include an early Toshiba in this series.,..

@@DinoBytes I purchased the Toshiba PDR-M81 from 2001 last year. It was the top of the line for Toshiba which sports a Canon Lens and was compared to the Powershot G2 at the time. Check them out! The M81 is a battery hog but love the photo quality.