I've owned this camera for 3 years and it's just great.
I paid almost $1000 for the camera and several accessories. But well worth it at that time. Now you can get it for under $500 new or under $300 used (just the camera). I've already sold the camera to move to a digital SLR but I still recommend this camera to friends and family.
I've printed 10x15'' photos with excellent quality, but I'm sure I can print even larger than that.
Night photos are great and the automatic exposure feature with its 1.8 lens would make you look like a professional photographer at nightlight.

I was planning to upgrade my C-3040 and tried different 5 megapixels cameras, such as Canon G5, Nikon Coolpix 5700 and Olympus 5050. C-3040 made better focus pictures than G5 or Nikon 5700!!! Olympus 5050 made identical pictures and although it had more features and accepts more card formats I was not able to justify the upgrade.
This showed me I made a right choice purchasing this camera.

This camera is incredible! With all the features it's one of the lowest priced and versitile camera's I've found (and I did alot of research before purchase). It's got BW, sephia, white board, black board and normal modes. You can adjust white balance, flash intensity (it also has an external flash output), shutter speed, ap. opening, picture format (HQ JPEG, SHG JPEG, TIFF, etc), etc. It's got a movie function that will record high quality video (better than my Sharp 8mm camcorder) and audio for upto five minutes! It's very easy to attach things like a wide angle or telescopic lens with a tube adaptor. It's a 3.3 megapixel camera, but Olympus has a better quality 3.3 than other cameras (I know, 3.3 is 3.3, but the pictures speak for them selves). It's got a tripod mount, timer, red-eye reduction, and remote control (that's right, it's got a remote control). It's got 3X optical zoom (meaning it uses lenses to zoom) and 2.5X digital zoom (meaning it blows up the image losing resolution). On top of all this, mine has taken a helluva beating (extreme cold, droppage, even mud), but there's no stopping it! You will love this camera!

I have owned this camera now for several years. Takes great pictures. Lots of creative options when using. It just takes some time to learn them all. Only negative comment is that flash does not seem to carry for long distance. Pictures tend to be on the dark side. Close up flash pictures are great.

Very seldom do I purchase an item that meets expectations based on manufacturers specifications and claims. This camera has done just that. The only conceren is that the the view finder is off slightly relative to actual picture. I have been very pleased with this camera.

I've shot lots of pictures using MF/AF film SLRs but always hated buying and developing film. SO I initially tried an HP digicam with horrible results. This drove me back to the film segment for a few years until I bought this camera used. It is fricking awesome. Yes it is a 6 year old design but do you REALLY need 8 megapixels for snapshots or family vacation pics. This camera takes better pics than the minolta slr it replaces. If you can find one in good shape, buy it!