Olympus Stylus 1030 SW Digital Camera Review

Olympus Stylus 1030 SW

Digital Camera Review

1.9 The Olympus Stylus 1030 SW is tough. The company claims it will shoot 33 feet underwater, withstand temperatures down to 14 degrees, survive a 6.6-foot drop and 220 pounds of pressure. But can it handle weddings and laughing children as well as snorkeling trips and snowboarding runs? To find out, why we put the dauntless 10.1-megapixel 1030 SW through our harrowing laboratory testing. And the result? Features and controls are limited, and you'll find roughly equivalent photo quality in less expensive cameras. If imperviousness to the elements is worth a premium price, though, the 1030SW can certainly shoot in comfy environments with reasonable, if not spectacular results. For details, read the complete review.
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Olympus Stylus 1030 SW
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Olympus Stylus 1030 SW Review

Picture Quality / Size Options (4.30)
The 1.1cm CCD image sensor, with 10,700,000 gross pixels, provides 10.1-megapixel resolution in standard 4:3 format.

Seven image size options are available:

10M
3648 x 2736
5M 2560 x 1920
3M 2048 x 1536
2M 1600 x 1200
1M 1280 x 960
VGA 640 x 480
16:9
1920 x 1080
 
There are also two compression settings: Fine and Normal.

Picture Effects Mode (2.75)
There are no picture effects that can be applied during shooting, but several options are availble for altering images during playback, in Edit Mode. These include:

- Edit: Save an additional, smaller version of the photo at (640x480 or 320x240 resolution)

- Crop: Choose one of four sizes (two landscape, two portrait orientation), though the cropping box can be moved around the screen.

- Color Edit: Create a copy in black and white, sepia, or one of two increased saturation settings

- Frame: Inset your chosen photo into one of thirteen frame designs. See the image below and judge for yourself whether any of these options is in any way attractive.


Retro design reigns in the Frame feature.

- Label: Overlay one of ten text messages (Congratulations, Thank You, Happy Birthday, etc.) over a photo you’ve shot. The label text can be white, black or a shade of gray, and resized and repositioned over the image.

- Calendar: Insert a photo you’ve taken with one of eight calendar layouts to create a combined page for printout.

- Index: Available during movie playback, the Index function takes nine frames and turns them into thumbnails combined in an index image that provides an overview of the movie clip.

Also available from the Playback menu are two image enhancement functions under the heading Perfect Fix. Shadow Adjustment brings up the lighting in dark areas and creates a new copy of the image with the enhancement applied. There is no user control over how much or how little the shadows are boosted. Redeye Fix is also available, again as an automated function with no user control.

During shooting, the 1030SW offers three different options for shooting panoramic images:

- Combine in Camera 1: Take your first photo. As you move the camera left or right, a point and a target marker appears on screen. When you line up the pointer with the target marker, the camera automatically takes a second picture. Follow the same procedure for the third shot and the camera combines the three images and saves the result. The three shots aren’t saved individually. And if you want to take just a two-image panorama, pressing Menu after the second shot does the trick.

- Combine in Camera 2: You take three shots manually. After each photo a panel on one side remains visible as a reference for moving the camera and lining up properly for the next shot. When three photos have been taken, the camera stitches them together and saves the result.

- Combine in PC: You have more freedom when shooting images to be combined using the OLYMPUS Master 2 software provided with the camera. You can shoot up to ten images to be combined, and can pan not only horizontally but vertically as well. However, there’s no handy on-screen reference helping you line up the next shot properly, as you have in the previous two modes, so you’re relying on the computer software’s superior processing capability to make up for your less accurate panoramic shooting.

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