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Olympus Stylus 1050 SW
Digital Camera Review
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Viewfinder (0.00)
The 1050 lacks an optical viewfinder, no surprise in a tightly packed compact camera. While it may be par for the course to omit this feature at this point, it's worth remembering the advantages an optical viewfinder offers, allowing a clear view while lining up a shot even in the brightest sunlight, like on a ski slope, where this water-resistant, freeze-resistant camera is right at home.
LCD Screen (6.25)
The 2.7-inch LCD screen is slightly smaller than the 3-inch versions we're finding on many compact cameras today, but it is bright and sharp enough for the job at hand, with a business-as-usual 230,000-dot resolution. Screen brightness can be adjusted to five different levels via the Setup menu, which makes a meaningful difference, particularly when shooting outdoors. The Olympus marketing mavens have dubbed their display a "HyperCrystal LCD," and while having the word "hype" right in the product name makes a snarky remark incredibly tempting, journalistic restraint requires us to report that the screen holds up unusually well under bright sunlight, with little glare or sign of the the washed-out look we find in most compact camera LCDs. And while holding a camera at an extreme angle usually means the screen colors shift or black out altogether, the Olympus display was accurate and legible no matter how we twisted and turned it.
The LCD toggles between four shooting display modes.
Flash (3.75)
The small flash unit sits alongside the camera lens, with some space in between for the focus assist/ timer lamp, and this arrangement seemed to effectively eliminate red-eye, even in very dark rooms. Just in case, you can turn on red-eye mode, which puts out a blinding series of pulses to shut down your subject's iris and guarantee a pained expression when the final shot is taken. There are no fancy flash sync modes, just auto, red-eye, fill-flash (i.e., mandatory firing) and flash off.
The light output is pretty intense for such a small strobe, though Olympus doesn't offer a guide number in the product specs. We did find an objectionable hot spot in the middle, though, particularly when shooting in a room where the wall didn't have a perfectly matte finish. Olympus claims a flash cycle time of approximately 3.5 seconds. Our timing came up about a second longer, which is still pretty good; we've seen compact camera flashes take a good ten seconds to recharge.
The flash is small and powerful, but coverage isn't very even.
Lens (3.50)
The 6.mm-20.1mm lens (equivalent to a 38-114mm on a 35mm camera) has an f/3.5 maximum aperture at its widest setting and f/5 at maximum zoom. As often happens with compact cameras, the zoom isn't smooth and freely adjustable, but moves into preset lengths as you press the control. There are nine zoom steps in all. If you want finer control, you're just going to have to walk closer or further away from your subject.
We like the full-camera-width protective cover that shields the lens and flash when not in use, and also acts as an on-off switch. It requires no finicky fumbling to slide this cover up or down, and it moves into place with an authoritative snap.
In addition to optical zoom, two types of digital zoom are available. What Olympus calls "Fine Zoom" produces higher apparent zoom ratios by capturing a progressively smaller section of the sensor, lowering image resolution as you zoom in, The maximum zoon in this mode is 17x, at a resolution of 640x480. You do end up with a lower-res image but, on the plus side, you don't experience the ugly pixelation caused by standard Digtial Zoom, which is also available up to 15x magnification.
Macro mode, which includes three settings, works well. Choosing the standard macro mode allows focusing as close as 7.9 inches (20 cm) from the subject. The super macro mode lets you get thisclose to the target, as near as 2.8 inches (7 cm). Finally, you can engage an LED light with the super macro mode. The bright LED light causes too much glare to be useful shooting anything with even a slightly shiny surface (even postage stamps proved problematic), but it does allow handheld shots of small objects that you'd never be able to achieve without the light. Overall, all three macro modes produced impressively sharp close-up results.
What's sorely missing, though is true image stabilization, whether through shifting lens elements or the image sensor itself within the camera. There's a digital image stabilization mode, available in both still and movie modes, but this simply boosts the ISO setting to enable faster shutter speeds, a poor substitute for true hardware-based image stabilization, particularly in a camera that's likely to be used in active settings.
The 6.mm-20.1mm lens (equivalent to a 38-114mm on a 35mm camera) has an f/3.5 maximum aperture at its widest setting and f/5 at maximum zoom. As often happens with compact cameras, the zoom isn't smooth and freely adjustable, but moves into preset lengths as you press the control. There are nine zoom steps in all. If you want finer control, you're just going to have to walk closer or further away from your subject.
We like the full-camera-width protective cover that shields the lens and flash when not in use, and also acts as an on-off switch. It requires no finicky fumbling to slide this cover up or down, and it moves into place with an authoritative snap.
In addition to optical zoom, two types of digital zoom are available. What Olympus calls "Fine Zoom" produces higher apparent zoom ratios by capturing a progressively smaller section of the sensor, lowering image resolution as you zoom in, The maximum zoon in this mode is 17x, at a resolution of 640x480. You do end up with a lower-res image but, on the plus side, you don't experience the ugly pixelation caused by standard Digtial Zoom, which is also available up to 15x magnification.
Macro mode, which includes three settings, works well. Choosing the standard macro mode allows focusing as close as 7.9 inches (20 cm) from the subject. The super macro mode lets you get thisclose to the target, as near as 2.8 inches (7 cm). Finally, you can engage an LED light with the super macro mode. The bright LED light causes too much glare to be useful shooting anything with even a slightly shiny surface (even postage stamps proved problematic), but it does allow handheld shots of small objects that you'd never be able to achieve without the light. Overall, all three macro modes produced impressively sharp close-up results.
What's sorely missing, though is true image stabilization, whether through shifting lens elements or the image sensor itself within the camera. There's a digital image stabilization mode, available in both still and movie modes, but this simply boosts the ISO setting to enable faster shutter speeds, a poor substitute for true hardware-based image stabilization, particularly in a camera that's likely to be used in active settings.
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