Olympus E-P2

There's not exactly much in the way of specifics on either of these just yet, but the usually reliable French magazine, Chasseur d'Image, has seemingly revealed in its latest issue that Olympus will be rolling out its E-P1 followup, the E-P2, before the end of the year, and that Leica will be releasing its M8 successor, the M9, as soon as September. The real kicker is that the E-P2 is said to be bringing with it an oft desired viewfinder, while the M9 will reportedly be a full-frame camera, and presumably cost more than a small car. Of course, neither are anywhere close to being official, but it may not be the worst idea to stick with your current gear a little while longer to see how things shake out.

Olympus Stylus 1030 SW

Although the 1050 SW is newer than the 1030 SW, don't let the numerical sequence fool you. The 1030 SW succeeds the 790 SW while the not quite as tough 1050 SW replaces the 770 SW. What you really need to know is that the 1050 doesn't match up to the 1030's capability to withstand pretty much anything you can throw at it (or throw it at).

While the 1050 SW is shockproof to 5 feet, waterproof to 10 feet and freeze proof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, the 1030 SW beats on all counts and adds a few extras. You can drop the latter from a height of 6.6 feet, take it underwater to a depth of 33 feet, haul it out in 14 degree weather and attempt to crush it with up to 220 pounds of pressure. A 3.6x wide angle zoom lens with a 35mm equivalent focal range of 28mm-102mm also sets it apart from its siblings.

You only have to look at and hold the metal-bodied 1030 SW to start believing that this compact camera is rugged enough to withstand everything Olympus promises. At the same time, the camera is attractively designed at 3.7 inches by 2.4 inches by 0.8 inch and 6.8 ounces fully loaded, it's compact enough to carry in your pocket while you're hiking up the side of a mountain or around your wrist while diving a shipwreck or a garden of coral and pretty fish.

Scuba divers should note that underwater time is limited to one hour. If you want to take the camera deeper or on an extended dive, check out Olympus' underwater housing for the 1030 SW. Also, anyone using the camera under, on or near the water should be aware that the camera is not buoyant if you let go, the camera's going to sink. But you don't have to participate in extreme sports to benefit from the camera's tightly sealed seams.

Gaskets and O-rings, as long as you maintain them, will keep out water, snow, sand, dirt and other assorted tiny debris that would wreak havoc with more vulnerable digital cameras. Like most snapshot cameras, the 1030 SW lacks an optical viewfinder. But its 2.7 inch, 230K-dot LCD features a wide angle of view and, with its five step brightness adjustment, can be tweaked to work reasonably well under most conditions.

If you're diving in dark environments East Coast shipwrecks come to mind you may have some problems viewing the display. But midsummer swimming pool conditions with bright sunlight overhead improves the LCD's underwater usability.

Olympus SP-570 UZ

At 4.7 inches wide by 3.3 inches tall by 3.4 inches deep and weighing 1 pound, 3 ounces, the 10 megapixel SP-570 UZ takes up a lot more space than the SP-560 UZ in fact, it's almost as big as Olympus' E-420 dSLR. (Much of the design hearkens back to the days before Olympus shortened "Ultra Zoom" to "UZ.") But all that room allows it to have a great, comfortable feeling grip, hot shoe, and a thumb wheel on top for adjusting shutter speed, aperture, and so on.

The 2.7 inch LCD also provides a minor step up from the SP-560's 2.5 inch display. That large grip accommodates the four AA batteries that power the camera. The menu navigation is typical Olympus, which means logically arranged with large, easy to read text and explanatory text that you pull up at the press of a button.

The help text is small and looks crammed into the left half of the screen, though, as if that part of the firmware were copied directly from another camera with a smaller display.

As is becoming common on dSLRs, you can press a button that calls up a grid of the camera's current settings and change them directly via the thumb wheel, which I really like.

However, Olympus forgoes a zoom switch in favor of a servo electronic manual zoom ring on the lens.

Unfortunately, the ring isn't nearly as responsive as it needs to be, and I found it inaccurate and hard to use, making for a frustrating shooting experience. (For more comments on the design, click through to the slide show.) The camera has all the manual and semi manual features you'd expect from an enthusiast model as well as a host of automatic modes targeted at less experienced shooters.

(You can find a complete feature list by downloading the PDF manual.) Naturally, it includes mechanical (sensor shift) image stabilization, without which the 20x lens would be pretty useless. Among the more notable features are Guide mode, which offers task centric, step by step instructions for various shooting scenarios. And I've always been a fan of Olympus' My Mode, which in the SP-570 UZ allows you to store up to four sets of custom settings.

As with the SP-560 UZ, this model also supports wireless flash, which can come in quite handy, and it's quite easy to configure the SP-570 UZ also adds a hot shoe. And it can focus as close as 0.4 inch in Supermacro mode. The camera can capture typical, OK looking 30fps VGA movies, but you can't zoom while capturing, which seems a waste of that lens.

Olympus SP-560 UZ

Body design was one of our favorite aspects of the SP-550UZ, so we were pleased to see that the new version looks and feels almost identical. Every design aspect is carried over, from the pop up flash to the comfortably large, flat buttons. It even weighs nearly the same, standing at a hefty but manageable 16.4 ounces with four AA batteries and an xD memory card.

A whopping big lens stands out as the SP-560UZ's most prominent feature, just like its predecessor.

The 27 to 486mm equivalent lens is slightly wider and shorter than the SP-550UZ's 28 to 504mm equivalent lens, but still offers the same f/2.8-4.5 range and 18x optical zoom.

I could easily frame the spire of the Empire State Building from Hoboken, N.J., thanks to the camera's long reach.

Sensor shift image stabilization helps reduce camera shake, a vital feature when pushing the camera to its full zoom without a tripod to stabilize it. Unfortunately, the SP-560UZ's biggest feature is also one of its greatest weaknesses. While its lens is long and wide, it simply isn't very sharp. Regardless of the lens position and focus, pictures taken on the SP-560UZ generally look soft.

Fine details, like text focused upon from a great distance, can appear fuzzy regardless of focus, shutter speed, or ISO sensitivity. Beyond the softness, significant noise further hurts the camera's pictures. Notable grain appears at ISO 200, and gets significantly worse as sensitivity gets higher. At ISO 400 and higher, noise consumes fine details, rendering textures muddled.

Olympus E-3

The magnesium alloy body is as solidly made as ever, and now it's dust, weather and splash proof, as well. At a shade less than 2 pounds, the body weighs about as much as its midrange dSLR classmates, with similar dimensions as well. It's quite comfortable to hold, with a deep rubber grip. Like all of its competitors, the E-3 supplies the requisite front and back dials, status LCD, and plethora of direct access controls. (For more details on the body design, see the E-3 slide show.)

While shooting, the layout feels logical enough, though some of the multi button plus dial combos feel a tad old fashioned. If you want, you can bypass most of them by using the so called Super Control Panel, an increasingly popular interface for adjusting most shooting settings from a single screen. The control panel doesn't rotate when shooting vertically, however, the way it does on Sony's dSLRs.

When you cycle through each of the direct access options, they appear in the viewfinder read out even options that don't normally appear there, such as white balance or image stabilization mode which is a very nice touch. The viewfinder, too, is great large with 1.1x magnification and 100 percent scene coverage.

Combined with the 4 : 3 aspect ratio native to the Four Thirds standard of the sensor and lenses (for a 2x focal length multiplier) and its big, comfortable eyecup, the viewfinder provides the same shooting feel as a far more expensive full frame camera. On the other hand, when operating at ISO 2,000 or higher, the display blinks continuously, which can get quite annoying. In addition to the viewfinder, Olympus includes Live View mode a feature it pioneered in conjunction with Panasonic for framing via the LCD.

Though it still requires a mirror flip up for pre-focus like most of its competitors, which can slow Live View shooting considerably, the E-3 provides a couple of helpful features. For one, its flip and twist LCD makes Live View useful in situations where a fixed LCD can't cut it (such as this shot).

For another, it lets you preview the effect of the image stabilizer. (The inability to see the stabilized image remains the one advantage of optical implementations over to sensor shift.) But at 2.5 inches, the LCD is also kind of small, and not quite high resolution enough for precise manual focus.

Olympus FE-300

The Olympus FE-300 distinguishes itself as one of the lightest, least expensive 12 megapixel cameras currently available. Unfortunately, its pictures pale in comparison to those from some higher end, lower resolution cameras. Measuring about 0.9 inch thick and weighing just 4.9 ounces with battery and xD-Picture Card, the FE-300 fits easily into nearly any pants or shirt pocket.

Despite its small design, the camera sports surprisingly accessible controls, with large, flat buttons that rest comfortably even under large thumbs. It lacks a viewfinder, but the camera's 2.5 inch LCD screen can be read clearly from nearly any angle. It includes a modest 35 to 105mm equivalent f/2.8-4.7 3x optical zoom lens. A wider wide angle would be nice, but this zoom range is typical for a camera this size and price.

While the FE-300 lacks manual exposure controls, it offers an otherwise pleasant selection of features. Olympus' new Perfect Shot Preview mode stands out among these features as one of the most useful aspects of the camera.

This mode lets you preview how your picture will look under four different EV compensation or white balance settings. If you shoot in awkward lighting, Perfect Shot Preview can really help you take a proper shot without a lot of trial and error or menu hunting.

You can even preview how movie clips will look at different quality settings and frame rates, though the highest quality 30fps VGA movie mode will almost always be your best choice. White balance and ISO sensitivity settings offer some control over your photos. In addition, the camera comes with 14 scene presets to complement its automatic, program auto, ISO boosting or shutter quickening digital stabilization, and movie modes. Finally, like most current digital cameras.

The FE-300 includes a face detection mode that can find your friends' faces and adjusts focus and exposure based on them when shooting portraits or group shots. The camera's menu lets you set sensitivity as high as ISO 6400, but lowers the pixel resolution to 3.1 megapixels when you shoot at ISO 3,200 or ISO 6,400.

Olympus Stylus 790 SW

Olympus' Stylus 790 SW, like the Stylus 770 SW before it, is tough enough to shoot in 10 feet of water or when it's 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Plus, it can withstand drops of up to 5 feet, so if you're klutzy, you won't have to worry quite as much. If you swim deeper than most, the 770 SW might be better for you than this model, since it can operate down to about 33 feet.

Other than that, a slightly different body design, and a new feature or two in the 790 SW, the two cameras are basically the same. If it didn't say so on the front of the camera, you might not think that the Stylus 790 SW is a waterproof camera. While last year's 770 SW's body design screamed rugged, with its all metal construction and tougher than nails look, the 790 SW has a softer look, with plastic accents on the top, side, and front.

Also, the 790 SW is about one ounce lighter and comes in five bright colors, while the 770 SW only had three, more muted colors.

All of the camera's buttons are on the right side of the camera back, except the shutter and on or off buttons, which are on the top.

The mode dial, also accented with black plastic, is on the back, and in my opinion, a bit small. The plastic has little notches in it, though, so it's thankfully not all that hard to turn.

Menus are separated into the shooting menu, accessed by pressing the OK button in the center of the four way rocker, and the main menu, which you get to by pressing the Menu button. The main menu lets you activate the silent mode quickly, but makes you choose a submenu before proceeding to anything else.

This slows things down a bit, but Olympus does organize the menus well, and the shooting menu and four way rocker let you quickly change anything you need while shooting. In our lab's performance tests, the Stylus 790 SW had decent shot to shot times, but otherwise didn't impress. The camera took 1.3 seconds to start up and capture its first JPEG. Thereafter, it took 2.3 seconds between images with the flash turned off.

With the flash turned on, that wait increased to 3.2 seconds. Shutter lag measured 0.6 second in our high contrast test and 1.6 seconds in our low contrast test, which mimic bright and dim shooting conditions, respectively. In burst mode we were able to capture an average of 1.5 full resolution frames per second.