Olympus SP-500 UltraZoom Digital Camera

A good camera

By ReZ  Jun 5, 2006 | 18 out of 18 found this Olympus SP-500 UltraZoom review helpful

Pros: 6 MP, 10X optical zoom, large LCD, uses AA batteries, many auto and scene assist modes as well as full manual control, Good image quality, easy and stable to hold in your hands, AF Assist Lamp (finally in olympus!), improved indoor and low light image quality

Cons: No image stabilization, no external flash port, Lcd resolution low for screen size, poor video mode

I previously had the Olympus C-760 Ultra Zoom which is from the same family of cameras. It was also an excellent camera. Recently I recevied this camera as a gift so i exchanged it for my old one. So in this review I will compare the two on many poin...ts. Pros: The camera has great photo quality. I was much satisfied with the c-760 in this respect but i can notice more improvement this model including less chromatic aberration and purple fringing. The pictures can sometimes be more contrasty and a little less focused, but u can tune these with the in camera contrast and sharpness settings. My c-760 always suffered under low light and indoor condition but this new camera has improved alot in this regard. Indoor shooting gives good results with the built-in Indoor scene mode. I am happy that at last olympus included the AF-Assist lamp in its mid-range cameras as it was due time to introduce this feature and it helps in low light focusing. Other good features are the 10X optical zoom giving you a long range, large LCD screen and the fact that the camera uses AA batteries which are convenient. There are many scene modes in the auto shooting mode to assist you in a vareity of conditions. And as usual in this range, full manual controls are available. And of course the 6 mega pixels also doesnt hurt anyone either. Cons: I guess the main thing missing in this camera would be Image stabilization which is now common in many cameras in this range by other manufacturers. The lack of this feature means that you will need very stable hands or a stand to shoot in low light conditions and in full zoom with little light. The LCD screen although big has too low a resolution and doesnt look that nice. Olympus decided not to introduce an external flash port in the camera. Although this isnt a movie camera but the movie mode on this camera seemed primitive! Quicktime 320-240 @ 30fps and 15fps! I think i had at least 640x480 on my c-760. Sometimes its just fun to shoot a movie moment on these cameras and many of the other digital cameras have much improved movie modes especially the ones from sony, not in this camera. Final conclusion: However in practice, the above cons will not hurt you much in ure photography unless in some special circumstances. You will be more than satisfied with the image quality of the camera and the wonderful zoom to care about anything else. I would recommend this camera to any novice-intermediate user who would like to have full control of the camera when required and let the camera do its trick on the auto and scene modes the rest of the time. Read more Less