Skip to main content

2026-06-23 Olympus Camedia D-535 Digital Camera


The Olympus Camedia D-535 digital camera is a cute little camera, introduced September 16, 2004. It was modestly priced at about $175 list. 










It had the motto, “one button/one function.” There were four scene modes available, as well as movies (QuickTime / 320x240 at 15 fps for as long as the memory held out) and “Program-Auto” on the rotary dial. A four direction with a center “OK” allowed rapid access to (starting at 12 and going clockwise)—
  • EV adjustments plus and minus 2EV in ½ EV steps
  • Macro (including Super-Macro allowing shooting down to 2 cm (0.79”)
  • Reset
  • Self-timer (12 seconds)
    The three buttons under the 1.5 inch (130,000 dot) screen (from left) are delete, menu access and flash modes. The two buttons to the right of the screen are camera (top) and playback. There is a rocker switch for zooming that doubles as a magnification /file views switch on playback. The power-on button is inset into the top at the middle of the camera, with the shutter button at the top forward and right of the power switch.
    If its sounds like a lot of controls, it does allow the direct access to almost everything except colour temperature (choice of five) and a couple of other things available through the menu button. The layout of the controls is very well thought out. Once you are used to the camera you could access everything almost by touch.
    The 38-114 mm (equivalent to 35mm) f/2.9-6 zoom has three aspheric elements. If you need more telephoto reach you can seamlessly slip into 4x digital zoom. The D-535 could be wider at the wide zoom end, but “wide” zooms hadn’t become mandatory at this price point. The 3 Megabyte sensor allowed excellent 4x6 prints—and the camera was PictBridge compatible so a computer wasn’t required to run a printer. It had USB 1 compatibility. 
    Shutter speeds went from 2 seconds to 2000 sec. The flash could reach to 3.8 m (12.5 feet). Normal closest focus was 50 cm (19.69 inches). The camera weighed 190 g (6.70 oz). The camera had 12 MegaByte of internal storage.


    One insurmountable problem was Olympus using xD cards for memory. xD cards are small and maybe even superior to the other memory cards—Sony Memory Sticks, SD and CF—but they didn’t catch on and are harder to find now. Later Olympus shipped cameras with an MASD-1 adapter that allowed using MiniSD/MiniSDHC cards in the xD card slot. 




    The camera could use any AA battery. 
















The camera came in a lovely pouch case.

















Camera zoom set to widest setting


Camera zoomed to maximum optical 3x zoom


Camera zoomed to maximum 12x optical/digital zoom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2026-03-14 - History and Evolution of the Kodak Logo

  While working as a junior clerk at the Rochester Savings Bank, George Eastman first began commercial production of dry photographic plates in a rented loft of a building in Rochester, New York in April 1880. In the next few years, Eastman became very successful and expanded the company several times. His company started as the Eastman Dry Plate Company in 1881, later became the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company in 1884, and soon after the Eastman Company in 1889. The last name change occurred in 1892, when the Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. The company has been called Eastman Kodak Company ever since.  The word "Kodak" was first registered as a trademark in 1888. The letter “K” had been a favorite of Eastman’s, he is quoted as saying, "I devised the name myself. The letter 'K' had been a favorite with me; it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made word...
Post a Comment
Read more

2026-03-20-Manfrotto monopods

  Sometimes collecting is a matter of persistence.       The Manfrotto “GRUPPO” 434SSB monopod (shown top) showed up one day at my local thrift store. They had a price tag of $25 on it. I had bought the lower Manfrotto Compact MMC3-01 monopod at the same thrift store for $3. So I asked, “Why so much?” They answered their “expert” had found it sold for $200 on the internet. I find experts—who almost never clerk in the thrift store, so are unreachable—hard to deal with. There is also the matter someone might actually pay them $25 for a 2.27 kg (5 pound) aluminum pole, so I decided to let the Gods-of-Collecting decide if I was going to ever own it. For weeks I would pick it up, check the price tag to see if they had come to their senses, and return it to the shelf. I did try various clerks to see if they would lower the price, but they said they were not authorized to change prices. I plodded on, week after week without much hope.         ...
1 comment
Read more

2026-03-25 The Kiron 70-150 mm F/4

This Kiron 70-150 mm f/4 Macro1:4MC zoom was made by Kino Precision, Japan in 1980. The same company made both 1.5x and 2x extenders for this lens. It is a lovely design featuring a 52 mm filter size —common to many normal lenses—and a constant f/4 at all zoom positions. The f/stops are full stops from f/4 to f/5.6 and from f/16 to f/22 while the other apertures are half stops apart. FOCAL LENGTH RANGE:          70mm - 150mm [2.1X zoom ratio] DIAGONAL ANGLE OF VIEW: 34.3° @ 70mm - 16.4° @ 150mm   LENS CONSTRUCTION: 13 elements in 9 groups WEIGHT (Olympus OM Mount): 460 g (with hood, front and rear caps) The macro range sets in below the three foot (0.9 m) marked distance at all zoom positions but you only get to the minimum 1:4 ratio at 150 mm. Macro starts around a 1:8 macro range at 70 mm. This is the only lens I have ever collected that has the original price sticker on the rear cap. At least I assume it is the original price sticker… It ha...
Post a Comment
Read more