Review on 📷 Capture the World in Stunning Detail: Olympus SP-570UZ 10MP Digital Camera with 20x Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom by Nadia Miller

Undoubtedly the most versatile of the dozen or so cameras (film and digital) I have owned. But it's also the easiest to use in a variety of situations. And the 20x optical zoom is amazing, equivalent to 26-520mm on a classic 35mm camera. A 30x soft zoom mode is available for 3 megapixel recordings, combining 1.5x digital zoom with optical zoom without loss of resolution. Color noise in low light, frankly takes decent pictures in light and at a distance that none of my previous cameras could ever do. To take good pictures in most situations, you need to learn how to: remove the lens cap, turn on the power button, aim the camera, and press the shutter button. From here you can mix and match other features and control where your photography needs, skills and interests take you. A button to turn on the flash. A ring for zoom control. A manual focus switch. Program, aperture or shutter priority modes. exposure compensation. Over 20 dedicated "scene modes" such as Portrait, Smile Shot, Fireworks, Candles, etc. One button to switch to macro or super macro focusing (1cm). Flash metering is done through the lens, and there's a hot shoe that interacts with Olympus external flashes for TTL metering, which seems pretty accurate. The camera has enough buttons (and a "Settings" multi-dial to provide an efficient interface for all the common controls that an advanced hobbyist might need. And it also offers a very generic menu interface that gives users direct control over still offers more camera settings without having to remember which button controls which Flash exposure and exposure compensation Bracketing (3 or 5 shots in increments of 0.3, 0.7 or 1.0) Drive: Single Frame, Bracketing, Continuous, High Speed (13.5 fps), Time Lapse sharpness, contrast and saturation adjustment sti. Metering "intelligent", spot or zone. Autofocus on the face, "intelligent", spot or zone mode. Continuous or predictive autofocus etc. One particular Olympus feature that I love is MyMode, where I can preset and access four combinations of settings that I expect to use frequently ifen by simply selecting one of my four modes. No wonder the "Quick Start Guide" is 100 pages long. NB: Don't be fooled: the $10 "Owner's Guide" available separately from Olympus is just a "Quick Start Guide" in a plastic wrap, official sources for the rest of the information an owner might need . When capturing 5 megapixel photos, the image quality seems to match or exceed that of my old Olympus C-750 in all conditions. (And it's significantly better on all parameters than the Olympus C-2100 I reviewed in 2001.) I expect to be able to crop images normally and still produce 8" x 10" prints with no visible digital artifacts. As with all my digital cameras, I will be using Photoshop to fix the images to my liking; I tried but didn't expect to make serious use of the 570U's in-camera editing tools Z. Oh yeah, the 570UZ is a pretty decent little camcorder too. Just flip the mode switch to Video and you can record VGA (640 x 480) or qVGA (320 x 240) video at 15 or 30 fps. Everything a Flip Video Ultra series camcorder can do in a body that's only slightly larger, with 20x optical zoom instead of 2x digital zoom and just one button to understand. But with the ability to use most of the camera controls outlined above if you wish. Because it records to a flash memory card (and the maximum xD card size is 2GB), video consumes storage space fairly quickly: less than 19 minutes/2GB at full resolution and frame rate, just over 50 minutes/2GB at minimum resolution and speed.