Olympus's 2001 enthusiast compact — 2.1MP CCD, fast 40-120mm equiv f/1.8-2.6 zoom, PASM, SmartMedia.
The Olympus Camedia C-2040 Zoom was announced in November 2000 and reached shops in January 2001 alongside the C-3040 Zoom, updating the C-2020Z in the enthusiast Camedia compact line. Its headline was the same very fast f/1.8 lens as its 3-megapixel sibling — unusually bright for any compact.
It pairs a 1/2-inch 2.1-megapixel CCD (1600x1200 output) with a 3x zoom of 7.1-21.3mm, equivalent to 40-120mm, opening to f/1.8 at wide and f/2.6 at telephoto. Modes cover program, aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual with AE lock and manual white balance; framing is by optical finder or 1.8-inch 114,000-pixel LCD. Storage is SmartMedia (8MB card supplied) and power two CR-V3 packs or four AA batteries.
The bright lens is the reason to seek one out: it gathers far more light than typical compacts, helping indoor and evening shots despite the modest 2MP resolution. Full PASM makes it a capable teaching camera with pleasant early-Olympus CCD colour, though prints beyond small sizes stretch the files.
Long-dead SmartMedia is the key used-market consideration — cards are small, out of production and reader-dependent, so a bundled card and reader lift value. AA compatibility keeps power simple. Check the lens for haze, the LCD for damage, and test files for the sensor lines that afflict ageing CCDs.