Olympus Stylus 500 / µ 500 5-Megapixel Digital Camera - Fast and Easy to Use
Written: Sep 17 '05 (Updated Sep 22 '05)
Product Rating:
Ease of Use:
Durability:
Battery Life:
Photo Quality:
Shutter Lag
Pros: Low price, features, image quality, sharp optics, compact, sturdy, large LCD, histogram, easy to use
Cons: Some plastic elements (battery door, tripod mount), expensive xD cards, no manual control, slow USB
The Bottom Line: I highly recommend Olympus Stylus 500 if you want an inexpensive all-weather, compact, cool yet capable camera with 5-megapixel resolution, sharp optics...
dkozin's Full Review: Olympus Stylus 500 / µ 500 Digital Camera
After having good experience with the 5-Megapixel Olympus Camedia D-595, I decided to try the 5-Megapixel all-weather Olympus Stylus 500. The two cameras are somewhat similar and somewhat different. The Stylus has all-weather design, a larger 2.5-inch LCD screen and no optical viewfinder. The D-595 has an optical viewfinder and smaller 1.8-inch LCD screen.
My Stylus 500 arrived and here is what I found.
Pictures
I took pictures of the camera and several sample pictures. They are available at the address below (you can copy and paste it into your web browser's address area):
The Olympus Stylus 500 is a 5-Megapixel all-weather metal-body digital camera with a 3x optical zoom (35-105 mm equivalent with maximum f/3.1 aperture at wide angle, f/5.2 at telephoto), a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, powered by a proprietary rechargeable battery.
The camera features ISO range of ISO 64-400 (automatic or manual), automatic and manual white balance, exposure compensation and 20 pre-programmed scene modes. The camera stores pictures on xD-Picture memory cards (32 MB xD card is supplied) and features USB connection to PC and Mac computers.
Getting Started
Once the camera arrived, I discovered that the battery was fully charged. I only had to insert it into the camera, insert the memory card and I was ready to shoot. Even the hand strap was already attached to the camera.
The camera is sturdy and feels solid. It has a lens that is flush with the camera body when retracted and the metal lens lid covers it.
The bottom of the camera has a plastic tripod mount and the battery/memory card compartment lid. The side has a rather large rigid lid that covers a USB, A/V and DC power ports.
The rear houses a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, zoom control, a metal disc (elliptical in shape) for menu control and other functions with a MENU/OK button in the middle as well as other buttons and a rotating mode wheel.
The top deck has a power on/off button and a shutter release button.
I inserted the supplied 32 MB xD memory card and the rechargeable battery and I was ready to shoot.
Usage
The camera is sturdy and well-built. And the controls are within easy reach. The menu system is simple to use and I could use the camera and all of its features without reading the manual. The pre-programmed scene modes (the camera has 20 of them for all kinds of situations like Portrait, Landscape, Night Portrait, Party, etc.) are easily selected at a push of one button, have descriptive names and the camera shows you descriptions of what they are designated for.
Just as the came with Olympus D-595, you will probably want to immediately disable the option called Reset All. By default, it is set to ON and resets the settings to their default values once the camera is powered off. In order for the camera to remember the settings (e.g. if you set the ISO to some value instead of Auto), you have to set the Reset All setting to OFF.
The camera has a retractable lens that extends and has a lens cover that opens when the camera is powered on. When the camera is powered off, the lens retracts and the lens cover closes. Both happen quickly.
The camera is easy to use. You basically select either the full automatic mode or choose one of the 20 scene modes and then point and shoot. The advantage of this is, again, ease of use. The disadvantages are few. There is no manual control over the focus, aperture or shutter speed. The camera has no Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Manual mode. Furthermore, the camera does not even show you the aperture value or the shutter speed selected. I am not saying that you need to know the values to produce good photos, but I find it useful to know.
The camera has exposure compensation that lets you make the picture brighter or darker, depending on how you would like it to look. There are also in-camera effects like Fisheye and Soft-focus, which I have not tried since I have Adobe Photoshop.
The camera can display a histogram, which I find useful in estimating if any part of the picture will be over- or underexposed.
As far as taking pictures, the camera is a breeze to use. You do not have to do anything other than point and shoot - the camera takes care of the rest. You press the shutter release button halfway to make camera focus and the camera shows you (on the LCD screen) that it focused. Then you take the picture by pressing the shutter release button all the way. There are two focusing modes - the one that automatically decides where to focus based on the scene mode selected and another one, where the focusing is in the center and you have to first point the center onto the object you want the camera to focus on, press the shutter release button halfway and then, after the camera focuses, re-point the camera (recompose the shot) and press the button all the way.
In auto mode, the camera can be used by anyone who can point and shoot. The preprogrammed scene modes give you more control.
In addition, you can select Macro mode at a push of a button. The camera has a dedicated review mode on the mode selector, and you can also use a button on the back panel to activate quick review mode.
Macro
I have not tried the macro mode yet.
LCD and Viewfinder
The camera has no viewfinder but has a large 2.5-inch LCD monitor that "gains-up" in the darker environments and has adjustable brightness. It works well overall, even in darkness.
Performance
The camera takes only about 1 second to power up and extend its lens. This is pretty fast. The shutdown takes about the same time. This is good because with some cameras you have to wait several seconds for the camera to extend its lens and by that time the opportunity may be lost already.
I had a weird dream last night. In that dream, some parts of which are too weird and irrelevant to this review, I saw a hedgehog and tried to take a picture of it, but every time I powered my camera on (I do not know or remember what camera it was), it took so much time for the camera to power on, the hedgehog would disappear in the surroundings. Am I a weird person or was it just a weird dream? This is irrelevant. The hedgehog was cute and I wanted to take zillions of pictures of it. And although the hedgehogs are not found in Southern California where I live, the bottom line here is: for some situations you need a camera that can be powered on fast.
I will ponder the hidden meaning of all the elements of my dream later. But let us get back to Olympus Stylus 500. The shutter lag, when pre-focused, is very short/fast. The focusing is fast in bright light, slower in darker environments, but is still rather fast. But sometimes the camera fails to focus (if it is too dark). This is not unique – cameras sometimes fail to focus and there is not much you can do about it.
The camera can take pictures at intervals of about 2 seconds in single-frame mode (up to 8 shots) then slows down to once every 3 seconds, until the memory card is full or until the memory buffer clears.
The burst mode lets you take about 1.5 frames per second for 5 consecutive shots and then slows down to once about every 3 seconds. The zooming is reasonable fast. You can fully zoom in or out in about 2 seconds.
Overall, the camera is average to fast in speed.
Battery
The camera should allow you to take more than 200 pictures on one battery charge. I have not depleted the battery by taking more than 60 photos.
Computer Connectivity
The camera uses USB connection to transfer pictures to a computer. You can also remove the xD memory card and use a memory card reader (if you have one).
Once I connected the camera to my Windows 2000 SP4 computer, it recognized the camera without any need to install the driver, with one but. I was asked to reboot before I could use the camera, which is unusual since I use different cameras with this computer all the time and usually have no need to reboot. After the reboot, the camera appeared as a removable drive and I could copy files from it.
The file transfer using the camera USB port is rather slow at about 400 KB/s. It is bearable, but I recommend that you get a memory card reader. They can provide much faster speeds.
Flash
The flash is decent for most tasks and has good color. It is not as powerful as on some other cameras, but certainly sufficient.
Image Quality
The camera has a good white balance system overall, even in incandescent light. Overall, the camera favors slightly warm white balance in auto mode.
The camera produces very good photos with well-exposed, sharp, contrasty images (see the samples). I was not able to find much chromatic aberration (purple fringing) and the photos have very good sharpness corner to corner (no noticeable softening in corners, unlike some other cameras). Overall, the camera seems to have excellent optics and software.
The noise situation is typical for a compact camera. Lower ISO settings feature lower noise with ISO 400 suitable for small prints only.
If you are printing 7x5 or 6x4 pictures, the noise should not be visible at all. And at lower ISO settings, enlargements up to 13x19 are possible and 11x14 enlargements should be very sharp.
Pros
Relatively low price, features, image quality, sharp optics, rechargeable battery and charger included, compact, sturdy, large LCD, histogram, easy to use, fast operation.
Cons
Some plastic elements (battery door, tripod mount), expensive xD cards, no manual control, slow USB.
Bottom Line
I highly recommend Olympus Stylus 500 if you want an inexpensive all-weather, compact, cool yet capable camera with 5-megapixel resolution, sharp optics, fast operation that is easy to use. If you want more manual control, check out the Olympus Camedia D-595.
5-megapixel sensor captures enough detail to create photo-quality 13-by-17-inch enlargements All-weather construction allows for outdoor use even on a...More at Amazon Marketplace
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