Small and with a Big Punch!
Written: Sep 19 '05 (Updated Sep 19 '05)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Battery Life: |
 |
|
| Photo Quality: |
|
|
| Shutter Lag |
|
|
|
Pros: Small, light, big beautiful photos and a nice size LCD.
Cons: No Viewfinder and optical zoom is only a 3x.
The Bottom Line: This is a very light weight, portable and easy to use digital camera that produces some great quality photos.
|
|
|
| surferdude7's Full Review: Olympus Stylus 800 / µ 800 Digital Camera |
The Olympus Stylus 800 is a small camera with a big surprise. First of all it is a weatherproof digital camera; “not waterproof.” The camera can be used outside while it is raining and not underwater. Next you get 8-megapixels of resolution; more than enough for anyone, which gives a large photo of 3264 x 2448 in SHQ mode. Third you get ISO equivalent settings from 64 to 1600; a great range for those low light settings without the use of the flash. Finally there are19 pre-set scene modes (fully automatic) for easy point and shoot settings; 24 shooting modes in all.
The LCD
This is one of the best features I think on the camera, a 2.5 inch LCD screen that covers about three fourths of the back of the camera. This gives you a nice big view of the photos to take and the ones you have taken, plus making all the camera adjustment through the LCD screen.
The Stylus 800 has a HyperCrystal LCD with approx. 215,000 pixels of resolution, made for bright outdoor conditions. It works fairly well in bright sunny conditions, but not as good as a viewfinder. The Stylus 800 “does not” have a viewfinder.
Movies
Movies on a digital photo camera? Most digital cameras have them, but remember they are not as good as quality as a digital movie camera.
My old Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera has two settings and the Stylus 800 has three movie settings with the addition of 640 x 480. I must admit the newer setting has a much improved video quality, but it is still not the quality of the digital movie camera. There is a built-in microphone to record sound with the movies.
Photos
The Stylus 800 offers a variety of photo sizes from 640 x 480 up to 3264 x 2448. The sizes are: 3264 x 2448 SHQ mode, 3264 x 2448 HQ mode, 2560 x 1920 SQ1 mode, 2272 x 1704 SQ1 mode, 2048 x 1536 SQ1 mode, 1600 x 1200 SQ2 mode, 1280 x 960 SQ2 mode, 1024 x 768 SQ2 mode, and 640 x 480 SQ2 mode.
Power and Storage
Included is a LI-12B 3.7v 1230mAh Li-ion battery pack and charger; I highly recommend buying a second battery so you can have a charge one all the time. Out of two charges I got 89 photos out of the first charge and 104 photos out of the second charge. The amount of photos you can take varies depending on settings and usage of the LCD.
For storage there is built-in 21.3MB of internal memory, which won’t go vary far, and a slot for an xD- memory card. I highly recommend a 512MB card or larger.
The Lens
The built-in lens is nothing special, it is a 8mm to 24mm optical zoom lens, which is equivalent to a 38mm to 114mm equivalent in 35mm photography. The maximum aperture is F2.8 in wide-angle and F4.9 in telephoto. Construction consists of 6 elements in 5 groups with 3 aspherical lenses.
The Flash
The Stylus 800 has a built-in flash with a telephoto range of 0.7 ft. to 11.5 ft. and in wide-angle a range from 0.7 ft. to 21.3 ft. These are the manufactures ranges; in reality to get a good flash shot, you need to be closer than what they recommend. The built-in flash works fairly well for most indoor and night shots as long as you aren’t too far away from the subject. The recycle time was between 4 to 7 seconds depending on the shot and battery strength.
You can set the flash for red-eye, which does help, but not all the time and you can use fill-flash, auto or off.
Help Guide
The Stylus 800 has a built-in help guide to help you with the functions of the camera. This guide is very basic, but it is useful for the novice photographer and us old timers incase we forgot a little. This guide is a good idea.
Other Features
CCD Imager of 8.0 megapixel effective, 8.3 megapixel gross, 1/1.8" CCD
Aperture Range f2.8/4.9 (adjustable in 1/3 EV steps)
Focusing System CCD Contrast detection
Shutter Speeds of 1/2000 second to 1/2 seccond (up to 4 seconds in Night Scene mode)
Recording Mode(s) DCF Exif2.2, JPEG, PIM 3
DPOF (Digital Print Order Format)
Image Effects - Still Image: Black and White, Sepia, Resize, Rotation, Red-eye Fix; Movie: Frame Index
Panorama Up to 10 frames automatically stitchable with Olympus Master software when using Olympus brand xD-Picture Card
Sequence - Normal: 1.3 frames per second, 4 frames or more in HQ mode; High Speed: 4 frames per second, 10 frames or more in SQ1 mode
Exposure Control of plus or minus 2 EV steps in 1/3 EV steps Metering System Digital ESP multi-pattern, Spot metering White Balance System - iESP multi-pattern auto TTL, Pre-set (Daylight, Overcast, Tungsten, and Fluorescent1, Fluorescent2, Fluorescent3)
Date/Time Calendar Simultaneous recording into image data and is automatic up to 2099
A Calendar is automatic up to 2099
Ergonomics:
People with smaller hands will love the small size of the Stylus 800, it can fit into a pocket or purse easily. The buttons and controls are easy to understand and use and the big 2.5 inch LCD is the icing on the cake for this little beauty. It feels good and solid in my large hands, but I still prefer a larger camera like the old 35mm cameras. The body is a metal exterior with rubber gaskets to keep out the moisture.
My Dislikes:
One dislike is the 3x optical zoom; a 3x optical zoom isn’t much for today’s standards, I feel like they could have went with at least a 6x optical zoom. The 5x digital zoom gives the possibility of a 15x zoom lens when combined with the 3x optical, but the digital doesn’t provide the clarity of the optical zoom.
My main dislike is there is no optical viewfinder; you must use the LCD for your entire photo taking. I do use my LCD most of the time, but every once in a while I get the urge to use the viewfinder, especially under bright sunny conditions on a white sandy beach. The newer LCD’s like the one in this camera do a much better job under bright sunny conditions, but they are not as good as having a viewfinder to use.
What you get:
The Olympus Stylus 800
A Wrist Strap, USB Cable and Audio/Video cable
A Li-Ion Rechargeable Battery and Charger
A Quick Start Guide, Basic Instruction Manual and Warranty Card
A CD-ROM with software and reference manual
My Final Thoughts
The Olympus Stylus 800 is basically a point and shoot digital camera, but you can make some manual adjustments. Olympus has put a lot of nice features in this digital camera that isn’t much bigger in size than a credit card.
Using the camera in the 3264 x 2448 SHQ mode produced some beautiful photos in all the ISO ranges. I did see a little extra noise (graininess) in the photo when I went to the ISO 400 setting and above; at ISO 1600 the noise was more noticeable, but it printed up beautifully on an 8.5 inch x 11 inch bordered photo from my HP PhotoSmart 1215 Personal Printer. When using the ISO 1600 for low light photos it works fairly well; shooting in the dark at only one candle produced a lot of noise when the photo is in the full view of 3264 x 2448, but when you bring the photo down to a smaller size it looks pretty good.
I shot two other resolutions to see how they would do; 1024 x 768 in SQ2 mode and 2048 x 1536 in SQ1 mode. Both produced good quality photos up to ISO 400, after that you could see a lot of extra noise in ISO 800 and even worse in ISO 1600, but when printing them on a 4 x 6 inch print, they looked pretty good. If you want to print a larger print than a 4 x 6 inch print for low light conditions without a flash, I recommend the best resolution settings for anything above a ISO of 400. For everyday use I prefer the 2048 x 1536 in SQ1 mode, which saves on memory over the higher settings and you can print good quality photos in the 8.5 x 11 inch range.
The Stylus 800 uses PictBridge technology, so if your printer is PictBridge-enabled you can print directly to it from the camera. The camera connects to your computer through a USB connection.
Overall I think Olympus has another top seller on their hands with the Olympus Stylus 800 digital camera. Out of a five star rating, I would give it four stars.
Here are some of my other Olympus Reviews
Olympus C-3020 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus C-4040 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-40 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-380 Digital Camera
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 399
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
surferdude7
|
 - Top 10 |
|
Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
Reviews written: 374
Trusted by: 1167 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.