Olympus FE-200: manual and user guide

The 6 MP Olympus compact with a 5× zoom and a 2.5-inch screen. Its official manual, then the essentials for using it.

Official Olympus PDF, which Olympus no longer publishes: the link opens the copy kept by Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Getting started

Charging The LI-12B battery charges in the LI-10C charger plugged into the mains. The lamp is red while charging and turns green when it’s done, after about two hours.
Battery and card Open the battery/card cover and slide the battery in the direction shown. To take it out, push the catch in the direction of the arrow. With the camera off, push an xD-Picture Card in straight until it clicks. With no card, it records to its internal memory.
Switching on for the first time Turn the mode dial to AUTO and press POWER: the lens extends. If the date isn’t set, its screen appears: set the year, month, day, hour and minutes with the arrows, choose the date order and confirm with OK.
Language Press MENU, choose SETUP, then the language line, and select ENGLISH. The languages on offer vary with the country of purchase, and the OLYMPUS Master software can add more.
Your first photo Put the mark in the centre of the screen on your subject and press halfway: the green lamp lights up when focus and exposure are locked. If it blinks, release and try again. Press all the way to take the picture.

A 5× optical zoom, from 28 to 140 mm in 35 mm equivalent, extended up to 20× by the digital zoom. The red part of the zoom bar shows the digital zoom, which makes the image grainier.
The mode dial offers AUTO, digital image stabilisation against blur, portrait, landscape, night portrait, SCENE and GUIDE, which helps you set up the camera step by step on screen.
SCENE offers ten situations: sport, indoor, candle, self-portrait, sunset, fireworks, behind glass, cuisine, documents and auction.
Video with sound, at 320 × 240 at 30 frames per second or 160 × 120 at 15. With sound on, only the digital zoom works during a movie: turn the sound off to keep the optical zoom.
Close-ups: from 20 cm at wide angle in macro mode, and from 5 cm in super macro, with the zoom locked.

Four modes on the flash button: auto, red-eye reduction, fill-in flash, which fires for every photo and lights a backlit face, and flash off.
Without flash in dim light, switch to digital image stabilisation: the camera raises the sensor sensitivity by itself.
Stay at least 1 m from your subject’s face when the flash fires.

The internal memory holds about 15 photos in HQ or 33 seconds of HQ video. With a card inserted, everything goes to the card and the photos in the internal memory can no longer be played back: remove the card, or copy them to the card with BACKUP.
A card from another brand or one that has been through a computer shows a card error: format it in the camera. Formatting erases everything, protected photos included. Panorama requires an Olympus xD card.
After 3 minutes without use, the camera goes to sleep: the shutter button or the zoom lever wakes it. 15 minutes later, the lens retracts and it switches off.
Don’t open the cover or remove the battery while the access lamp is blinking: you could lose the photo and make the card or the internal memory unusable.
In very cold weather, the battery may no longer power the camera on: take it out and warm it up in your pocket for a while.

Sensor: 1/2.5-inch CCD, 6 MP effective, images up to 2816 × 2112
Lens: 5× zoom, 4.6-23 mm (28-140 mm in 35 mm equivalent), f/3.3-4.8, up to 20× with the digital zoom
Focusing: autofocus from 0.25 m to infinity, macro from 0.2 m at wide angle (0.5 m at telephoto), super macro from 5 to 20 cm
Shutter: 4 s to 1/2000 s
Metering: Digital ESP
Screen: 2.5-inch colour TFT, 153,600 dots
Video: 320 × 240 at 30 frames per second or 160 × 120 at 15, with sound (QuickTime Motion JPEG)
Battery: lithium-ion LI-12B (or LI-10B), 3.7 V, 1230 mAh, LI-10C charger in about 2 hours
Card: xD-Picture Card from 16 MB to 1 GB, or internal memory
Dimensions and weight: 97.5 × 59 × 27 mm excluding protrusions, 155 g without battery or card