Olympus D-540

Manual Control Options
The user of the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom can manually control Flash, Macro Mode, EV Compensation, and White Balance. All other features are handled by the camera itself, relying on automatic controls; a slight handicap in more complicated shooting situations.

Auto Focus (7.0)
The automatic focus on the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom is fairly responsive, and is engaged by partially depressing the shutter to meter the focus setting for the intended shot.

Manual Focus (0.0)
Not surprisingly, there is no manual focus setting on this point-and-shoot camera, with the only "manual" opportunity being the possibility for Auto Focus Lock for subjects that are harder to focus on. The user merely finds a similarly distanced object, initiates the auto focus lock feature, and re-frames the composition to included the alternate focusing.

Metering (0.0)
The metering for the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom is set by the camera through a Photometric Digital ESP metering system, and is completely inaccessible to the user — another setback for the user interested in manual control.

Exposure (6.5)
The Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom has exposure compensation, which allows the user to select a setting from a sliding scale of -2 to +2 (including zero) at 0.5 step increments. This scale is less accurate than the 0.3 increment settings that can be found on most digital cameras that have exposure compensation available.

White Balance (4.5)
The white balance control for the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom is controlled through the OK menu. Once accessed, the user can choose among the Auto, Sunlight, Cloudy, Indoor, and Fluorescent settings. It is disappointing no manual white balance is available, and the limited set of included presets further confines the user in terms of color orientation and accuracy.

ISO (7.0)
There is no manual ISO setting available to the user of the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom. Users must rely on the camera's automatic ISO setting, orienting the camera to a sensitivity range equivalent to ISO 50-400.

Shutter Speed (2.5)
Manual control of shutter speed on the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom is also limited to a primarily automatic configuration, although the mode setting chosen by the user can dictate the amount of time given to the shutter to handle the lighting of the situation. Thus, modes like night scene have potentially slower speeds than self-portrait. The shutter speed varies from 1 to 1/2000th of a second in most modes, and up to 2 seconds when in night scene mode.

Aperture (0.0)
There is no manual control of aperture available on the Olympus D-540. The automatic aperture rating for the lens on the Olympus Camedia D-540 Zoom ranges from f/2.9 to f/5.0.