Olympus SP-590UZ

Viewfinder (4.50)

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) shows the same view as the LCD, just writ small. You toggle between the two displays using the Monitor button on the top right of LCD. The EVF was a bit slow on the refresh, and had an odd green tint, which left us less than enthused.

Display (4.65)

The LCD measures 2.7-inches diagonally, with 230,000-dots squeezed into that space. This is neither particularly large, nor especially high res, but has a very wide viewing angle, which is a nice touch. The Olympus HyperCrystal system of LCDs are better than most at handling sunlight, and the screen is actually usable in the bright outdoors.

Flash (7.50)

The flash is deployed mechanically rather than electronically, so the camera can’t raise it on its own. This can be an advantage if you don’t want the flash going off at inopportune times, or a pain because you have to push the button whenever you want to use it. One advantage to having a pop-up rather than on-camera flash is that it distances the strobe from the lens, which helps prevent redeye. Of course, ultrazooms can block flash output when you have the zoom set long, but the height of the pop-up here was fairly effective on that front.

The flash is very bright, and has almost no light drop off, even at the wide-angle end of the lens. Likewise, the autofocus assist bulb is strong enough to blind passersby. However, even with this powerful bulb, the camera was slow to focus in low light.

Lens (16.50)

The 26x zoom lens on this Olympus is officially the longest zoom on the market. For those keeping score at home, it’s the 35mm equivalent of 26-676mm, so it has an impressive wide-angle on it too. The downside, with this particular model at least, is at 26mm you get substantial distortion. As you zoom, a small bar appears on the screen, showing your progress from wide to telephoto. It’s a small thing, but we would have liked there to be a numerical accompaniment, so we can see what focal length we were at.

The maximum aperture is f/2.8 wideangle and f/5 at the telephoto, but the minimum aperture is only f/8.

Of course, the question is what sort of magnification will 26x zoom actually get you? Have a gander below, for a feel of just how much you can invade someone’s personal space.

Zoom Ratio Examples
4.6 mm	49.7 mm	119.6 mm

Battery (5.00)

The SP-590UZ uses AA batteries, which have some advantages. While they don’t hold a charge as long as the Li-ion batteries you find in many other cameras, they have the distinct advantage of being able to be purchased at any store on the planet. When in the middle of India without a plug converter, you can bet which one you’d want. And of course, you can always buy an inexpensive set of rechargeable AAs as well.

Memory (1.00)

Olympus remains steadfastly behind the curve, forcing users to stay with their outdated, low-capacity and expensive xD cards. As you probably gleaned, we’re not fans. It does come with an adapter for using MicroSD cards, which is a small improvement.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs (3.50)

There are three ports on the SP-590UZ, one proprietary USB/AV, one HDMI (even though the camera doesn’t shoot HD video) and one for DC in. You have to buy the cables for the latter two separately.