Roundup: Compact Digital Cameras : Olympus Stylus 1050 SW
22. Olympus Stylus 1050 SW
When the going gets tough...
The Stylus 1050 SW is the predecessor of the new Stylus TOUGH. It is shock-proof to 5 feet, water-proof to 3m and freeze-proof to -10°C. So there you you go: drop it in a slushy puddle and traipse over it, it will still be ready to shoot. But all this at the cost of a loss of performance in less rough conditions. It is slow and noise is quick to appear when the light poor.
The lack of competition in this area was a bonus for Olympus until now, but with the new Pentax and Panasonic models, the new µ Tough series has to get better.
Note: In the US, this camera is sold under the name, "Stylus 1050 SW."
Olympus has become the specialist of waterproof cameras over the years. The SW series can take photos under water, up to 9 feet, and even up to 33 feet for the Stylus 850 SW. The Stylus 1050 SW claims to be shock-proof to 5 feet, water-proof to 33 feet and freeze-proof to -10°C. It is the last of the series that will be replaced by this year by the Stylus Tough--a name that is certainly more revealing.
Handling
- Stylus 1050SW Blue...
The Stylus 1050 SW has an all metal body and shockproof casing, and for that very reason, is rather heavy. A sliding panel protects the lens. Sliding it up turns the camera on, therefore the "power" button seems a bit redundant. What’s more, the "slider" tends to open when at the bottom of your bag.
The resolution of the 2.7-inch LCD display is correct. It is however very shiny and therefore hard to use on a sunny day. There is an interesting tap control feature" if you tap lightly on the sides of the screen, you can trigger some operations such as picture playback or set the flash mode. A pure gimmick?
Well think again. Try using a compact camera with skiing gloves and you might quickly change your mind. This is indeed an innovation we would welcome on all cameras meant to work in extreme temperatures... well at least at -10 °C.
Patience was required during our test from the moment we turned the camera on. The sense of slowness will stay with you all along. The Olympus Stylus 1050 SW feels a little sluggish while focusing in low light and also when storing images. This again causes an unfortunate delay between consecutive shots. Burst mode at high speed seems at first excellent, with 7 frames per second on more than 15 frames.
Things look down from then on because the Stylus 1050 SW has to stop during the next 15 seconds while it stores everything on the card. With that said, it is worth underlining that Olympus holds hard onto its xD cards, both expensive and with a capacity limited to 2 GB. The Stylus 1050 SW will accept a micro-SD in an adaptor, but some of the functions will be restricted: video is limited to 10 seconds, for example.
Picture quality
The periscope lens of the Stylus 1050 SW is average: you will catch the details in the middle while the edges are more blurry. The quality of the whole is satisfying for prints. In terms of sensitivity levels, results at 800 ISO are not as good as those we have seen with models by Fujifilm, Canon or Panasonic, for example.
 | Colors are fine and white balancing is good outdoors and warms in artificial light. |
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| Olympus Stylus 1050 SW | |
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| Pluses | Minuses |
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| The Stylus 1050 SW is full of good intentions but slightly disappointing. The sluggishness is maddening at times as is the quality of pictures in poor light. However its resistance to harsh conditions earns it an extra star. |  |
should have classified the cameras to at least price and/or final rating. i got discouraged to read.
should have classified the cameras to at least price and/or final rating. i got discouraged to read.
When you say classified, what do you mean? Do you mean the pages should go in order of price, or in order of rating? Such as the cheap ones at the beginning and the expensive ones at the end OR the best cameras at the top and the worst cameras at the bottom?
i meant group them by chosen price ranges/brackets or any feature you think is relevant since comparison between cameras is just difficult with the present format wherein it is only possible to compare models of a certain brand.
It would have been nice if all the cameras were given scores (yes I know this is very subjective, but so are all the comments and pro/con sections). Idealy they would be given su scores as well (i.e. a still picture score, a video score, a asthetics score, a usablity score, maybe some others) and then the cameras could be sorted by those scores with links, maybey a short blurb at each camera in the sorted list. Another thing that would be very usefull to myself and I assume other readers is a features table that allows us to compare all the cameras.