Olympus Stylus 1030 SW

Size / Portability (7.50)
All the shockproofing, waterproofing, and near bullet-proofing Olympus has used to gird the camera's photographic loins against the elements also serves to boost the weight-to-size ratio beyond at-a-glance expectations. The 1030 SW looks fairly petite at 3.7 x 2.4 x  0.84 inches (93.6mm x 60.9mm x 21.3mm), but it weighs in at a solid 6.3 ounces (170g) without a battery. Considering the intended usage in rugged environments by daring, adventurous folks, we're fine with that – a camera built to withstand the elements should have some heft in the hand. On the other hand, if you like to wear low-slung jeans, the weight of the 1030 SW just might lead to some embarrassing surprises if you carry the camera in your pocket.

Handling Ability (8.00)
We found the 1030SW comfortable to hold, at least with two hands. The weight and balance make it tough to hold securely for a one-handed grab shot, but those shooting situations are few and far between in our experience anyway. With our left and right thumbs supporting the camera from below, left index finger resting on the top of the camera and right index poised on the shutter release, we had no trouble point-and-shooting quickly and accurately. The prominent lens housing makes a nice extended finger rest on the left side, affording a little extra stability when using the right thumb to adjust the cluster of controls. There's little danger of obstructing the lens or the flash with a stray fingertip, a common flaw with compact cameras. For a camera designed to be used in potentially challenging shooting situations, Olympus has done an excellent job providing secure, simple handling.

The 1030 SW is small but still easy to handle,
even for editors with large paws.

Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size (7.75)
The control layout is a bit cramped, but we found that learning the system was reasonably straightforward and, once learned, we could make adjustments quickly and efficiently.

The lens zoom buttons also serve to zoom in and out during image playback and, when zoomed out beyond full-size display, to bring up a thumbnail image display, progressing from four to nine to sixteen images to twenty-five images on the screen and, finally a calendar display with photos neatly arranged according to the day they were taken.

Controls are packed in tightly.

The dial below the zoom controls moves smoothly and firmly enough into eight positions.  These are:

AUTO: full auto mode

Program: indicated by a black camera icon, program mode offers automatic exposure control while allowing the user to change white balance, ISO, burst mode, metering mode, image size and compression settings

Anti-shake: essentially full-auto mode with automatic ISO boost to counteract camera shake

SCN: brings up a choice of 24 scene modes (see below). If the highlight remains on a scene mode icon, a text description automatically appears.

GUIDE: a mode that lets users set shooting parameters based on a textual descriptions and on-screen images previewing the impact of available decisions

Movie Mode: indicated by a movie camera icon

My Favorite: indicated by a blue star icon, displays photos you've pre-selected as your top picks

Play: indicated by the familiar VCR play icon, printed in blue

The lower third of the right control panel presents an array of buttons that may appear intimidating at first glance, but in practice works well. In the middle is the four-way controller, with its OK/FUNC button in the middle and arms that call up exposure compensation, flash mode, self-timer and macro mode controls when not navigating an on-screen menu.  Pressing the center button while shooting brings up the useful shortcut menu (see below).

Tucked into the otherwise empty space between these arms are four little round buttons – waste not, want not when it comes to available space on a compact camera. Moving clockwise from the top left these are Menu, Play/Print, Backlight Compensation/Erase and Display/Help/LED. While that sounds like a lot of baggage for a few buttons to carry, the functions sort themselves out based on how you're using the camera at a given moment. If you're shooting and hit the Play/Print button, it brings up an image review screen for previous shots. If you're in playback mode and connected to a printer, the same button brings up direct print controls. The backlight compensation/image erase button is equally clear in context – mostly. Hold down this button long enough and there's a surprise treat: an onscreen Button Guide that adds precisely no information to your understanding of what's right in front of you already. A fine entry in the Worthless Features Hall of Fame.

That last button, in the lower left corner, also has a peculiarity or two. During playback mode it toggles between a variety of on-screen displays – fair enough. While navigating on-screen menus, it pops up  informational text captions – again, pretty useful. Hold it down long enough, though, even if the camera is off, and the LED illuminator (ordinarily used to light up objects within macro range, instead of blowing them out using flash) turns on. Maybe this is meant to be a find-your-car-keys mode, but as far as we're concerned it's headed straight to the aforementioned Hall of Fame.

A little good-natured taunting aside, the 1030 SW control system is mostly well designed, with buttons that respond well to an intentional press but aren't easy to trigger accidentally.

Menu (6.50)
The menu system combines a number of nested branches, attempting to bring the most frequently used controls to the screen as quickly as possible. For the most part, the design succeeds.

This convenient shortcut menu keeps
frequent adjustments readily available.

Top of the list in this regard is the record-mode shortcut menu that appears when you press the OK/FUNC button. In program mode (where you'll do most of your shooting) it brings up a concise listing down the left side of the screen with white balance, ISO, shooting mode, metering mode, image size and compression setting, each of which presents a fly-out menu across the screen as you toggle the highlight downward. In practice, we almost never had to press the MENU button and work out way through sub-menus thanks to this quick-access set-up. In AUTO mode, only image size and compression settings are available from ths menu.

Beyond this shortcut control, the standard camera menus work as follows: