Olympus Stylus 1000 Digital Camera Review

by Emily Raymond
Published on November 16, 2006

Navigation
Intro	Testing / Performance
Physical Tour	Components
Design / Layout	Modes
Control Options	Image Parameters
Connectivity / Extras	Overall Impressions
Conclusion	Specs / Ratings
Photo Gallery

 

Color (5.45)

Using the Olympus Stylus 1000, we photographed an industry standard color chart in studio lighting to test the accuracy of the camera’s recorded colors. Because there is no manual white balance mode, we used the tungsten setting optimized for studio lighting. After snapping some photographs of the colorful GretagMacbeth chart, we uploaded the images into Imatest Imaging Software to check the accuracy. The chart below is modified and output by the software program. It shows the camera’s colors in the outer square of each tile, the luminance-corrected ideal in the inner square, and the original colors from the chart in the vertical rectangles.

 

The different portions of the tiles look discolored. To make sure this isn’t just an optical allusion, Imatest output a graph with the ideal colors plotted as squares and the Olympus Stylus 1000’s colors plotted as circles.

 

Ideally, the shapes would be on top of each other showing no difference between the ideal and the camera’s colors. This is definitely not the case though. The Stylus 1000’s colors are loosely tied to the original colors of the GretagMacbeth chart. Part of the problem is the camera’s inability to properly white balance the scene; even the white tone in the center is off. Many compact cameras exaggerate warm tones on purpose to enhance skin tones in portraits. The Olympus Stylus 1000 is opposite though; its cooler colors are extremely exaggerated and its red colors are among the most accurate in the spectrum.

 

The Olympus Stylus 1000 received a truly awful overall color score of 5.45, which ranks even lower than the Stylus 800’s 6.12 mark. The new model had a mean color error of 11.2 and oversaturated colors by 5 percent.

Still Life Scene
Below is a shot of our standard still life scene, shot with the Olympus Stylus 1000.

 

Resolution (5.09)

This is supposedly the bread and butter of the Olympus Stylus 1000. It advertises a whooping 10.1 megapixels, which is a huge amount for a point-and-shoot digital camera. We tested the image sensor’s ability to capture detail by photographing an industry standard resolution chart. We tried several different focal lengths and apertures, and uploaded the pictures into Imatest to find the sharpest one. It determined that the shot below, taken at f/4.7 and 22.2mm, is the sharpest one gleaned from the Stylus 1000.

When the image is downloaded and magnified, readers can see that its edges are slightly blurred and even discolored. Imatest helps us identify just how sharp this picture is by quantifying it in units of line widths per picture height (lw/ph), a theoretical measurement of how many alternating black and white lines could fit across a frame horizontally and vertically.

 

The program determined that 2004 lw/ph could be resolved horizontally, with 14.6 percent in-camera oversharpening. Vertically, the Olympus Stylus 1000 could read 2003 lw/ph with 13.6 percent oversharpening. This comes out to a 5.09 overall resolution score. This is decent for a compact digital camera but comes with a good deal of oversharpening. Images produced with the Stylus 1000 will contain a good deal of detail but will not hold up to much post-processing.

 

Noise - Auto ISO (2.01)

Olympus’ TruePic Turbo image processor includes some noise reduction technology, so we tested it in optimal lighting to see how it would perform. Noise usually appears in relation to the ISO setting; when the ISO is raised, the noise generally increases. We tested the auto ISO setting, but the Stylus 1000 didn’t meter the scene well in the first place. The camera produced about the same amount of noise found at ISO 300, which is way too much noise for these brightly lit conditions. The Olympus Stylus 1000’s overall auto ISO noise score of 2.01 is horrible, and is perhaps one of the worst scores we’ve seen in the past year.

  

Noise – Manual ISO (7.41)

The Olympus Stylus 1000 has an enormous manual ISO range extending from 64 all the way up to 6400. Not all of its options can be used at the full 10-megapixel resolution. The top two settings, 3200 and 6400, can only be used when shooting at the 3-megapixel image size or smaller. A range of 64-1600 at full resolution is still respectable; we tested the camera at each full-res. manual ISO setting available to see how much noise was produced. Below is a graph showing the manual ISO settings on the horizontal axis and the noise on the vertical axis.

The amount of noise in images is disappointing. There is a steep increase in noise, so pictures are already speckled by the ISO 200 setting. The noise plateaus around ISO 400, though, and it doesn’t go much higher even when the ISO is raised another two stops. From these tests and the overall 7.41 overall manual ISO noise score, we suggest keeping the ISO below 200 when at all possible. While the Stylus 800’s overall score was similar at 7.29, its top ISO setting was only 400. And its noise levels in the lower end of the range were significantly lower than the Stylus 1000’s.

  

Low Light Performance (4.5)

The Olympus Stylus 1000 is marketed as a go-anywhere super-portable and convenient type of digital camera. Theoretically, it should be able to take great pictures whether in broad daylight or dim night. All of our other testing is done in bright studio lighting, so for this test we dim the lights to 60, 30, 15, and 5 lux. A small room softly lit by two lamps after dusk is similar to the lighting found at 60 lux. A single 40-watt bulb emits about 30 lux. The 15 and 5 lux tests are extremely dark and aren’t typical photography situations, but these tests help us define any limitations by the image sensor.

 

Testing in low light had its problems. The Olympus Stylus 1000’s auto focus system had trouble focusing, even with the help of the assist lamp. It had the most trouble in the 5 lux test. The darker the scene became, the colors became less and less accurate. They looked pastel at times and appeared far from ideal to the naked eye. The darker the scene became, the longer the shutter remained open and the more noise crept into the picture. Below is a chart showing just how much noise (vertical axis) showed up at the different shutter speeds (horizontal axis).

 

The Olympus Stylus 1000 used relatively short shutter speeds in our testing, with its slowest 0.5-second exposure time in the 5 lux test. There is an exorbitant amount of noise in this test; picture quality was definitely compromised. Overall, the Olympus Stylus 1000 is still decent in low light – mainly because of its wide ISO range. It will allow photographers to shoot a few decent pictures, unless they’re shooting in a dark broom closet and the auto focus system doesn’t cooperate.

 

The Stylus 1000 took 2.25 seconds to start up and take a shot when we pressed the power button and then the shutter. That’s not bad for a compact camera, though users should plan ahead and make sure the Stylus 1000 is on before they get in situations ripe for spontaneous pictures.

 

The Stylus 1000 does not offer a burst mode in its highest-quality SHQ or HQ modes, but in the much smaller 2048 x 1536 SQ1 mode, it shot 3.9 frames per second for a burst of 30 frames. That’s a fast, long burst, even for an advanced camera. It will be useful for sequences of all sorts of action, though at a lower quality than the camera’s best images. Don’t plan on enlarging these prints.

 

The delay between the moment the shutter is pressed and the moment the camera takes a picture can make the difference between a great shot and a useless one – a beautiful smile or the back of someone’s head, for instance. Stylus 1000 users will have a harder challenge than many other cameras impose, because it delays about 0.63 of a second between shutter and shot. That’s longer than many compact cameras take. With the Stylus 1000, users will need to anticipate action, and press the shutter before the moment they want to capture.