“...it is a damn good camera and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone”

So, after my pretty dismal first camera review experience – the GE A1250 (different brand, different model) - (which was kind of like the first time most people have sex – expecting a bang and most usually being delivered a barely registering whimper) I was slightly dubious to see that the second camera – Olympus u-Tough-3000 - to be placed into my eagerly awaiting hands looked pretty much the same as the first, even down to the colour (pink).

The Olympus u-Tough-3000 came in almost an identical box to the GE A1250 and it was practically the same size. It also came with similar promises of turning me into the world’s next Annie Liebowitz within seconds of turning it on. My consternation grew further when, on opening the meaty looking instruction book, it turned out only six pages were in English! With half of those being taken up by visual instructions of how to turn the thing on, my confidence in it was already waning.

How wrong I was.

The Olympus u-Tough-3000 is one of the best little cameras I’ve ever used. The reason the instructions were so sparse is that some bright spark actually decided to put them on the camera itself. Now I’m no David Bailey and I don’t mooch around Dixons in my spare time sniffing camera lenses for fun so I have no idea if this has been done before or is indeed a break-through for common sense. However having a step by step guide to each feature on the camera itself is, in my humble opinion, pure genius. I’m not the most technological of people and written down instructions seem to go in one ear and out the other. Yet holding on to the camera and running through the Fish Eye feature or the Panoramic feature with a full on tutorial right there in front of me whenever I needed it was an absolute godsend. From making your images look like pop-art to ‘beautifying’ your subject (although to be fair I couldn’t really see the difference with that one), to working the whole face selector thing, it was a breath of fresh air to use.

Not only that but the pictures themselves were brilliant. The major issue I had with the first camera is that, seeing as we’re in the flipping 21st century and that it was supposed to be a brand new model, the images it took were, to use a well-worn word, naff. The u-Tough-3000 on the other hand, with its 12 mega-pixel lens gave me crystal clear shots, picked up colours beautifully and focused where I wanted it to, leaving me with pictures I’d be proud to whack up on Facebook. My particular favourite feature, which I have to admit I got a bit carried away with, was the panoramic one. Take one picture, then it fades out a bit and slides to the side leaving a slight overlap, then you just move your hand, match the image up to the overlap, do it again, one more time and Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt. You’ve got a panoramic shot that actually looks like it was done at the very least, semi-professionally. For gorgeous holiday photos or just having a laugh and getting your mates in the same picture three times (it’s funny after four shots and three pints), it was easy to use and a lot of fun.

Another fabulous feature included the video camera. Again great quality, just flip the dial to the little celluloid film icon and away you go. It picks up sound really well, you can move it around and it doesn’t massively blur unless you’re taking the mick and are on the waltzers, and it doesn’t take up loads of your memory space.

Which brings me to my final point. The memory space. My first cameramatic (I don’t think that’s a word but heigh-ho) experience was blighted from the start because of the miserly allowance of a mere six photos without a memory stick – which incredibly annoyingly and somewhat stingily, wasn’t supplied. When I opened up the u-Tough-3000 it was the first thing I looked for in the box and quelle surpreez – there wasn’t one. Cue muttering under the breath and rummaging in random boxes around the house to see if I had one. However I needn’t have worried. The u-Tough-3000 had a marvellous 100 shot-space already available on the camera with which to play with straight away. If you’re one of those people that uploads their pictures from a night out straight away and don’t take a gazillion pictures, chances are you may not even need a memory stick!

To sum up, if the GE A1250 was a write-off, then the Olympus u-Tough-3000 is what you write home to your parents about, introduce your mates to and, when no-one is looking, daydream about walking up the wedding aisle to dressed in a huge white meringue. Okay so maybe not that extreme, but it is a damn good camera and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone ;)

RRP: £199.99 Available at various online & high street retailers including Amazon.