Paul Le Chien

But if you are an adventurer who likes to have his/her camera with you everywhere - and I mean EVERYWHERE - and you can "live" with fairly high-res photos taken with a point and shoot, well, this is the camera for you.

After much frustration getting the camera initialized, without which you cannot download pictures to your computer, my husband went to Olympus's web site and downloaded both the manual and software. Now the camera is functioning well. The memory is the wrong memory. It is the memory for the older model.

There is so much packed into this point and shoot camera that you've got to sit down for about a half an hour to an hour and learn how to use it. It's not rocket science but there are some things you need to learn how to use. I use this camera primarily for taking close-ups (think inches) away in either bright sunlight or very dim and shadowed areas. It even has a LED that can be turned on to light up very close pictures. I have played around with it a bit and have realized the difference between some of the most common settings. I am thankful for the pet feature (though I use sport more often for this as I have a kitten) and firework setting. I did take about 200 shots that were of a comparable quality to the 720, I have not really checked out closely from the memory card. The 1st time I took it in snorkeling at surface level, I got 1 picture and the controls/screen went haywire. You decide if you want to pay more for fancy stuff. Good pick if you want an affordable, waterproof, backup camera. I used to get an occasional blurry shot with my other cameras from them not focusing well on moving objects (kids) but with this one I haven't had a bad shot yet on the kids running in the yard. It truly is amazing. I'm guessing it allows the camera to charge more quickly. So my advice is to get a small case that allows you to ALWAYS have that cable with you.

The 'manual' is stored in the camera, which was new to me, but it wasn't difficult to figure out. All in all, I like that better because it saves resources, as well as the added benefit of a 'tutorial' scenario where the user can practice different shooting modes and methods, etc.

Wouldn't you want to know all that it does" This camera does a lot. Their program you use on the computer is great too. So many awesome features! I hope it works as well under water. I bought this camera in November, owned it for a month and I dropped my purse with my camera in it and the camera broke.

I am surprised by some of the negative reviews of this camera. I have a suggestion to those reviewers: READ THE MANUAL!