Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Digital Camera Review

Features
Handling
Performance
Verdict
Specification


Lens extended

Announced in February, the Olympus SZ-10 is part of the Super Zoom range of cameras from Olympus and is available in silver and black with an RRP of £199.99.


Front

Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Features

The SZ-10 features a massive 18x optical zoom lens, which is a 35mm equivalent of 28 - 504mm, ideal for shooting both landscapes and close-up sporting events. The camera also has a 14 megapixel sensor and iAuto mode to help take pictures as easily as possible.


Top

Key Features

Rear

Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Handling

The SZ-10 is built from plastic and benefits from rubber grips on the front where you place your right fingers, and one on the back for your thumb. The menus are easy to navigate with most of the picture settings changed via a menu which appears down the right hand side of the screen. Here you can change the flash, focus mode, self-timer, exposure compensation, white-balance, ISO and number of frames taken. The buttons don't present any problems and the dial on the back works as both a D-pad as well as rotating to cycle through menu options.

Olympus haven't provided a CIPA rating for the camera's battery but it was charged before testing and was not needed to be recharged. Focus speed it good as well is start-up time, it is ready to go within a couple of seconds of switching on. In continuous shooting the SZ-10 shoots full sized images at about 0.9fps, switching to High-speed 1 yielded 4.9 fps and High-speed 2 gave 10 fps although the image size is limited to 5 and 3 megapixels respectively.


Battery

Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Performance

Whether shooting wide or with the full 18x zoom, the SZ-10 retains a good amount of detail throughout the images although there is a touch of purple fringing on occasion. Colour reproduction is also good and macro photos look fantastic, aided by the minimum focus distance of just 1cm.

Olympus SZ-10 Lens test images

At ISO 64 there is a touch of noise in places and more so at ISO 100. It becomes steadily worse at ISO 200 and at ISO 400, images produced are starting to lose sharpness. ISO 800 produces soft looking images and at ISO 1600, there is a significant loss of detail and sharpness thanks to noise. ISO 800 and 1600 images are likely to be better for web use rather than large prints.

Olympus SZ-10 ISO test images

Even in dull, overcast conditions, the SZ-10 is able to take landscape shots with good colour and sport mode is able to capture the water in the air. Although the subject looks a little red, the camera takes good portraits without any red-eye.

Olympus SZ-10 Scene modes

Below are some images using the full 18x optical zoom lens. The first image was taken using High-speed shooting to capture the batsmens movements. The other images were taken using iAuto mode.

Olympus SZ-10 Sample Photos

Panoramic | 1/2000 sec | f/9.3 | 5.0 mm | ISO 640

There were no white-balance issues during testing. Under our studio lights the camera coped well with the AWB just having a slight orange cast in the image under the incandescent lights, with the incandescent preset giving the best image. The AWB has worked perfectly under the fluorescent lights, which a magenta cast in the image when using the fluorescent preset.

Olympus SZ-10 White-balance test images

There are eight creative digital filters which can be applied during shooting, seven of which can be used during video recording.

Olympus SZ-10 Digital filters

Video Mode

The Olympus SZ-10 shoots videos at 720p HD but doesn't allow the use of optical zoom during recording, when sound recording is also active, which is a shame, but you can use digital zoom. The magic filters available during video recording are Pop Art, Pin Hole, Fish Eye, Drawing, Soft Focus, Punk and Watercolour.

Value For Money

The Olympus SZ-10 is available for around £148.99. Other cameras with an 18x optical zoom lens are the Nikon Coolpix S9100 (12.1 megapixels, £224.99), Fujifilm FinePix S2950 (14 megapixels, £136.99) and the Samsung WB700 (14.2 megapixels, £170.00) The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 (14.1 megapixel, £248.99) and Leica V-Lux 30 (14.1 megapixels, £549.99) both have 16x optical zoom but cost more, especially the Leica.

Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Verdict

Using the SZ-10 is a good experience, with easy to use menus and rubber grips to help hold the camera steady. Image quality is good, although noise does significantly effect images after ISO 400, but the 10 fps shooting means you can take some pleasing pictures of fast moving objects, even though image size is limited to 3 megapixels. If you like taking close-up pictures, you won't be disappointed as Super Macro mode means you can shoot from just 1cm away. You can shoot 720p HD videos, with the use of Magic Filters, but it is frustrating to have a camera with so much zoom, yet it isn't available for movie recording when you are also recording sound.

The Olympus SZ-10 is an easy to use camera, with good image quality, at a very reasonable price.

Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Pros

Rubber grips on front and back
Minimum focus distance of just 1cm
High-speed shooting at 10 fps
Good detail in images

Olympus SZ-10 Super Zoom Cons

Lots of noise in images after ISO 400
No optical zoom with sound in videos

FEATURES
HANDLING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
OVERALL

Olympus SZ-10 Specifications

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