Olympus SP-600UZ Review
The Olympus SP 600UZ is easy on your wallet for a mega zoom, but its photos and performance require a lot of compromise.
As with many things in life, expectations play a big part in whether you will like the Olympus SP-600UZ. The two main attractions are its wide angle lens with 15x zoom and its price. It can easily be found for less than $200. The rest of its features which include one press recording of 720p HD movies, 1GB of internal memory, and AA batteries, are good for the money, too. Based on looks, specs, and features, the SP 600UZ is a good deal.
In addition, a wide angle lens with a 15x zoom is very seductive for many consumers. Just a few years ago it would have been impossible to find a camera with the SP 600UZ’s lens at this camera’s price and size. You can find smaller cameras now with that kind of shooting flexibility, but they will cost you more than $200. Despite its long lens, though, the SP 600UZ is an entry-level camera and its photo quality is typical for its class.
Extending the lens, though, may require you to bump up the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast enough to help with motion blur and hand shake. Then, Color from the SP 600UZ is generally good, at least at the lower ISOs before noise causes the aforementioned problems. The white balance is not very good indoors; the auto leans toward warm, while the presets are cool. On the upside, the camera’s Perfect Shot Preview system lets you easily see how the white-balance settings will look before you shoot. You can then just pick the one that looks best to you. There is no manual white balance.
On the other hand, Video quality is on par with a basic HD pocket video camera: good enough for Web use and undiscriminating TV viewing. Panning the camera will create judder that’s typical of the video from most compact cameras. The zoom lens does function while recording, but you have to shut off the mic before you start shooting. In other words, you get zoom but no audio, or you get audio but no zoom.
The most importance, the Olympus SP-600UZ is a cheap but attractive mega zoom camera with a decent feature set for automatic shooters. Its photo quality is only good in bright lighting conditions, preferably outdoors, and its shooting performance is best suited for stationary subjects and patient users. It was so nice.
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