Roundup: Compact Digital Cameras : Olympus Stylus 550 WP
23. Olympus Stylus 550 WP
TN LCD Screen
The Olympus Stylus 550 WP screen uses TN technology, which ensures a fluid result but with poor color quality and very limited vertical viewing angles.
Looking up at the screen from underneath, it soon blackens and it becomes impossible to see what you're photographing. When looking from above however, it appears white.
The Olympus Stylus 550 WP is an elegant, well-designed camera and one of the cheapest waterproof models on the market today, but can it live with the competition and give the results you want at the pool or on the beach?
Handling
- Stylus 550WP Blue...
The Stylus 550 WP is styled like a stripped-down version of a classic compact digital camera; a nice design. The most noticeable difference with any other entry-level compact are the seals that cover access to the batteries, memory card and USB connection, allowing you to take photos at depths of up to nine feet. Perfect for the pool, but not enough for the open sea.
The camera controls are made up of four arrow buttons and several shortcuts. The directional arrows are much too small, and if you have large fingers, it's very easy to find yourself pressing two or even three buttons at the same time. The zoom control is also very small, and so stiff that it's hard to get the zoom right first time.
The 2.5-inch LCD screen is sharp and clear, but only if you're looking straight at it; the viewing angles are much too restricted, especially from above and below.
The Stylus 550 WP is slow: it takes 1.6 seconds to power up and saving a photo takes a good five seconds, easily long enough for you to lose patience. Only the Autofocus is fairly rapid.
Image Quality
In good light and on dry land, the Stylus 500 WP takes perfectly good photos. The lens is nothing exceptional, but photos are still sharp for a 10 Megapixel camera. As is too often the case, the sensor 'burns' light shades and the white-balance could be improved, especially indoors. Electronic noise handling is also poor, and it would be unwise to try anything above 800 ISO. The lack of image stabilization doesn't help either.
Video mode is still only at 10 fps (when's that firmware update coming, Olympus?), and you can't use the zoom while filming. Macro mode is more reasonable with focus at 7-cm.
| Olympus Stylus 550 WP | |
|---|---|
| Pluses | Minuses |
|
|
| Easy on the eye, waterproof and with good photos up to 400 ISO, the Stylus 550 WP has a few points in its favor. Unfortunately, it is very slow and lacks features (wide-angle lens or optical image stabilization) that you'd expect to be included at this price. |  |
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.