Olympus FE-250 Digital Camera Review
By Melissa Robotti
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
September 05, 2007
Introduced in January 2007, the 8-megapixel FE-250 is the middle model in Olympus’s entry-level line. The FE-250 has typical point-and-shoot features including 3x optical zoom, a 2.5-inch LCD, and digital image stabilization. The FE-250 had an introductory price of $299.95.
Overall, the Olympus FE-250 performs poorly. There are no white balance presets, a gimmick of a Burst mode, and it struggles in low light. Olympus made a poor decision to not include white balance presets; almost all point-and-shoots have them and some even have a custom setting. White balance presets tell the camera what white looks like under current lighting conditions. Without presets, realistic color is at the mercy of the camera’s auto white balance setting – the FE-250's isn’t very accurate. Simply put, if the color looks off in the FE-250’s images, there’s nothing that can be done to fix it in-camera.
Olympus reports a 12 frame-per-second burst rate that sounds amazing but should come with a big, bold asterisk next to it. Our tests showed the camera actually takes 2.2 seconds to snap 12 pictures, and at only 15 percent of the size of full resolution images.
When the lights are dimmed, the FE-250 can expose the scene, but color, once again, suffers. Photos taken in a dimly lit restaurant or living room won’t be frame-worthy or even album-worthy.
Of some help to the beginner is the Shooting Guide mode, deemed important enough to have its own position on the mode dial. It is designed to help beginners take better pictures. The Scene modes are another beginner-friendly feature. The Olympus FE-250 has 13 of them that cover the basics like Landscape, Portrait, and Fireworks.
The FE-250 includes a digital image stabilization mode that increases ISO up to 3200 and shutter speed to eliminate blurriness in photos caused by shaky hands or moving subjects. Despite these efforts, many competing digital cameras have optical image stabilization, which is much more effective and results in higher quality pictures.
Perhaps under the assumption that beginners wouldn’t have an interest in manual controls, Olympus left most of them out. This was a mistake by the manufacturer, as similar cameras such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 and the Casio Exilim EX-S770, for example, give users access to settings such as white balance and metering.
There are many of-the-moment features that can be had for a $300 price tag that the FE-250 does not include. The 7.2-megapixel Nikon S50, for instance, was introduced around the same time as the FE-250 with the same introductory price but with a bigger 3-inch LCD, face detection technology, and optical image stabilization.
In August 2007, Olympus announced three additions to the FE series: the 300, 290, and 280. Though we have not tested these cameras, features such as face detection and in-camera editing already make these models more appealing. They will retail from $199.99 to $299.99.
The FE-250 doesn’t leave much hope for the models below it. Its lack of manual controls and overall poor image quality might be justifiable if it was offered at a deeply discounted price; the FE-250 has no business being in the $300 price range with better performing, feature-packed cameras by other manufacturers. Perhaps with the latest additions to the FE series, the FE-250’s price will drastically drop, as it should.
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