Olympus Stylus 1000
Digital Camera Review
Nov 16, 2006
- By Emily Raymond
1.8
A new digital camera was deemed king of the Stylus line on August 23 with the announcement of the Olympus Stylus 1000. This 10-megapixel digital camera carries on the all-weather legacy of its series while stuffing in more resolution and a few more interesting features. This model has a “digital image stabilization mode,” a Perfect Fix function in the playback mode, and Bright Capture technology meant for shooting in dim lighting. The Olympus Stylus 1000 also packs a significantly expanded sensitivity range, extending from ISO 64-6400, although the settings beyond 1600 come at reduced resolution. Other specs include the 3x optical zoom lens and 2.5-inch LCD screen. The Olympus Stylus 1000, also called the Olympus µ 1000 in
Europe , retails for $399.
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Viewfinder (0.0)
The Olympus Stylus 1000 does not have an optical viewfinder, instead relying on its LCD screen to provide a live view to photographers.
LCD Screen (8.0)
The Olympus Stylus 1000 has a 2.5-inch LCD screen equipped with Bright Capture technology. This allows users to view and shoot in low light. At Photokina 2006, Olympus showed off this technology using a kitschy pink car with dark tinted windows and an Elvis mannequin inside. Show attendants couldn’t see through the windows with the naked eye, but could use the Bright Capture LCD screen to see Elvis through the window. The screen’s brightness can be tweaked further with 15 selectable levels. The LCD screen’s view is wide enough to hold it to the right and left sides and still see the image, but holding it above or below the head solarized the screen making it hard to frame shots. The Stylus 1000’s LCD has great resolution with 230,000 pixels and the refresh rate kept moving subjects looking smooth. Another big plus is the fact that the screen’s surface does a great job at repelling fingerprints. It’s unclear how it does this; it almost seems like magic. Sony should take notes on this, as some of their Cyber-shot camera’s LCD screens get so coated with finger grease and look like a teenager's forehead at After-Prom. A button to the right of the screen changes its display to these options: image only, image with file info, image with file info and histogram, and the image with file info and dashed yellow guidelines superimposed on the screen. Overall, the LCD is a success, offering a decent size screen, great resolution, low light capability, and magical finger repellent.
Flash (7.5) The Olympus Stylus 1000 has a built-in rectangular flash that is positioned on the front so as to stay out of the way of fingers. The flash is quite powerful with its specs claiming that it reaches 17.1 ft when the lens is zoomed out and 10.5 ft when zoomed in. This is a powerful flash for a small camera; most comparable slim models have built-in flashes that only reach about 10 ft. For the most part, flashed subjects looked decent. There were a few greasy-looking foreheads, but those were few and far between. Details in the background were well-maintained too. The central positioning of the flash not only keeps fingers from blocking it, but also helps light subjects evenly. The flash has few modes: On, Off, Auto, and Auto with Red-eye Reduction. The red-eye reduction mode sends out a quick set of strobes before firing two more powerful pre-flashes and the final flash. Overall, the Stylus 1000's built-in flash performed fairly well considering its compact size.
Zoom Lens (6.75)
The 3x optical zoom lens extends in three segments from the main body of the camera. It is controlled by a lever on the back of the camera that has a “W” for the widest 7.4mm focal length on the left and a “T” for the most telephoto 22.2mm focal length on the right. This is equivalent to a 35mm-105mm zoom in 35mm format. The zoom lever is sensitive, but not overly sensitive. When lightly pushed, I got the lens to halt at 10 different focal lengths. The average 3x lens stops about 6 times in the range, so the Olympus Stylus 1000 performs comparatively well. When users browse the zoom range, a vertical bar appears on the LCD screen with the “T” on top and the “W” on bottom. This shows the approximate position of the zoom lens within its range. There is a slight whining noise when the lens moves; it isn’t anything terribly distracting but is certainly of note. There is also 5x digital zoom available but it is best avoided. This Stylus does have a 5x “fine zoom” feature that uses the whole image sensor to digitally zoom, but it is only available at the reduced image size of 3 megapixels. The Olympus lens is constructed from 6 lenses in 4 groups with 4 aspherical lenses included. It hardly showed any barrel distortion, even when using the super macro mode.
