The Olympus FE-110 is a digital camera
targeted to novice snapshooters. It has 5.0 effective
megapixels resolution on a 1/2.5 in. image sensor.
The Olympus lens is a 38-106 mm (35mm format equivalent)
F3.0(W)-F5.0(T), 2.8x optical zoom.
We find the overall image quality of the Olympus
FE-110 to be average. Colours are saturated. As
always, best thing is to check out the images
for yourself in the Olympus
FE-110 Photo Gallery and see if they are good
enough for you.
2.8x
Optical Zoom
Wide-angle
6.2mm
(38mm, 35mm equivalent)
Telephoto
17.4mm
(106mm, 35mm equivalent)
In the above pictures, we show the coverage for
38mm and 106mm. It's not much zoom, but 106mm
is a nice focal length to use for portraits.
Super Macro
38mm, Program Auto, Center-Weighted
Average, AWB
1/8 sec., F3.0, ISO 125, Super Macro
The Olympus FE-110 can focus in Super Macro mode
to as close as 2 cm (0.8 in.). The camera has
difficulty focusing in low-light. For the above
picture, we had to shine an extra light source
to obtain accurate focus lock.
Auto White Balance
Indoors
AWB
As the above picture shows, the Auto White Balance
(AWB) gives a slight colour cast under fluorescent
artificial light. There is no Custom (manual)
White Balance so you can expect that colour cast
in all your indoors shots. AWB works quite well
in natural light and when using flash, but there
are no preset settings.
ISO
ISO Auto (Camera chose ISO 125)
The 100% crop
above (area delimited by the white rectangle)
demonstrates that noise is low at ISO 125, though
visible in the shadows. Even though ISO ranges
from 64 to 320, the Olympus FE-110 is a "sunny
outdoors" camera. Since the AF has difficulty
locking focus in low-light, you will not find
an opportunity to use those higher ISOs.
Chromatic
Aberrations
CA is visible in strong highlights situations.
In the shot above, CA is visible in the area delimited
by the red square at centre (reproduced at 100%
crop at bottom right).
Long Shutter
Speed
38mm, P-Auto, CWA, 1 sec.,
F3.0 ISO 125
Macro, Self-Timer (12 sec.), Tripod Used
The Olympus FE-110 provides a maximum long shutter
speed of 2 sec. in Night Scene mode. Here I'm
checking out the presence of noise at long exposure
(noise usually increases the longer the shutter
is left open). As usual, I place Bamm-Bamm under
my office desk, in the shadows. However, the AF
hunts and locks at the wrong focus point because
of the lack of contrast in low-light, so I am
forced to shine some light on it. After many out-of-focus
shots, I eventually obtain an exposure of 1 sec.
at F3.0 in P-Auto. To eliminate camera shake,
I place the camera on a tripod and use the self-timer
(set to fire after 12 sec.).
The pictures in the Olympus FE-110 Photo Gallery
page provide a good sample of what the camera
is capable of. I have provided samples at 800x600
pixels (compressed to Quality 60/100 in Photoshop
Elements) as well as the 2560 x 1920 pixels original
size (click on the image for the original version).
You can safely assume that most macro shots and
slow shutter speed shots required the use of a
tripod. Any image that is adjusted for levels
in Photoshop has "_adjusted" appended
to the file name.
I have defaulted the image size to 800x600 pixels.
For those who have their monitor resolution set
to 1024x728 pixels, everything should snugly fit
and you should not have to scroll to see the whole
image. If your monitor is set to 800x600 pixels
resolution, start the slide show and then scroll
to the right to position the image within your
screen width. Then, press F11 (if you are using
Internet Explorer) to switch to full screen mode,
and the image should fill your screen nicely.
Press F11 again at any time to switch your monitor
display back to normal mode.
To return to this page from the Photo Gallery,
click on the animated graphics of the camera.
Please open and download the original size version
only if you need to and only once
to your hard drive -- and save me some precious
bandwidth. Thanks!
