The Olympus C5500 Sport Zoom provides good value among cameras of its class. Aside from its 5X optical zoom, its specifications seem average but the C5500 stands out from the competition by its low noise, superb battery life and exceptional low-light performance. It is a mystery why it is called 'Sport Zoom' considering the camera's slow speed and lack of continuous shooting at the highest image quality. Other important down sides are automatic white balance problems (possibly overcome using manual white balance), some optical distortion (excusable given its higher optical zoom) and difficulty holding the camera when the flash is up.