Pros: Picture quality is stunning, build quality solid, good value for the money
Cons: Uses XD picture cards which are a little slower and pricier than SD cards.
The Bottom Line: Those who wanteasy point&shoot with a few manual controls. Camera fires up in less than a second. Awesome sharp, crisp, colorful and blurr free pics.
wlmedia's Full Review: Olympus Stylus 800 / µ 800 Digital Camera
I purchased this camera last week since my Sony dsc-w5 was stolen. This is my first non Sony camera purchase and I am very satisfied. The first thing that turned me onto this camera was the eight megapixel ccd and the hypercrystal 2.5 inch screen on the back. The screen has three times the resolution of most camera making it very easy to see in all lighting conditions.
Another great aspect of this camera is the "supermacro" mode to get as close as 3 cm, great for takings photos of food and insects. The camera has 17 scene modes such as "cuisine" "fireworks" "available light" "nightscene portrait" "landscape" "beach and snow" etc. When selecting once of these modes the camera automatically adjusts itself to take the best posible shot, nice feature. Another nice addition is the anti-shake so that your'e pictures don't come out blurry. A big complaint I see about digital camera owners is about the weak flash, not the case here. The camera can light up a completely dark room and make it seem like the sun was shinning in.
The camera is quite lite and weatherproof which is great for the beach. The camera's body has smooth curves and has a very sturdy feel to it due to its aluminum casing, fits nicely in jeans pocket. It uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery which lasted about 185 shots with flash on and the lcd screen on for playback. The camera has a movie mode but its not that great because is records at 20fps and sound is mediocre.
The most important thing about this camera is that the pictures it takes are absolutely phenomenal. Crisp, vibrant, sharp and blurr free. I could not be happier with the image quality. My old Sony could not hold a candle to the images taken with the stylus 800.
The camera comes with a soft pouch, instruction manual on cd, a seperate battery charger and 19mb of internal memory. It used XD Picture cards, probably the only drawback in the whole thing. XD cards are more pricy than SD cards and have a slightly slower read and write speed. They only come in 1gb capacity so far and thats what I got, no option for a 2gb card yet. Also, if you want to use the panorama function with the camera, you must use an olympus brand XD card. I opted to get the Fuji XD card because its cheaper and I don't care about panorama since I can do it in Photoshop.
Overall a very good camera that I plan to keep for a few years. I never thought a non Sony product would satisfy me so much. Good-bye Sony!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
See all you can see with one of the most full-featured compact cameras ever. Enjoy amazing detail with 8 megapixels. Experience the view on a large, s...More at eBay
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