Digital Camera Review

First Impressions Review

Sep 26, 2008 - By Richard Baguley
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW lives for moderate danger; it is water, shock and freezeproof, so it can stand up to the rigors of a trip to the beach or an adventure in the snowy wastelands. And we found the camera to be easy to use, with the new tap control (where you tap the sides, top and back of the camera to control it) to be an interesting and useful addition.
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Manual Control Options
The 1050SW is lacking in the manual control options, as there is no full manual mode, and no dedicated shutter or aperture priority mode. This omission won't be a problem for most users, but it might be limiting for those who want to try and explore what can be done by taking control of the picture-taking process. 

Focus
Auto Focus
Three auto focus modes are available: Face Detect, iESP and Spot. The first mode tries to detect faces and use them to set both focus and exposure. If it can't find a face, this mode defaults to spot mode. In iESP mode, the camera picks an object in view and focuses on that, while spot mode uses a central spot for focusing. We found the focusing to be generally quick and accurate; both the face detect and iESP modes also usually found the right subject to focus in on.

ISO
The ISO range of the 1050SW starts at 80 and goes up to 1600. That's a pretty standard range that will cover most situations, but an increasing number of cameras are offering higher settings. This could have been especially useful in the dimly lit underwater world of the 1050SW user. A full auto ISO mode is also available

White Balance
The usual selection of white balance settings are present and correct; there are settings for daylight, cloudy, tungsten, and three fluorescent settings. The latter is slightly unusual (and could be useful), with sub-types for daylight fluorescent tubes, neutral fluorescent and white fluorescent. However, there is no way to evaluate white balance from a photo or enter a white balance value directly. Most users won't miss this, but it is nice to have the option. 

Metering
Three metering options are available: Digital ESP (which evaluates the scene and picks the settings), face detection (which uses the faces to meter against) and spot metering, which uses a small spot in the center of the screen. We weren't able to judge the accuracy of these settings in our tests at Photokina. 

Shutter Speed
The shutter speed ranges from a relatively quick 1/1000 of a second down to 4 seconds in the night scene mode. In full auto mode, the longest shutter speed is 1/4 of a second. Again, that's a decent range, but more creative types may feel constrained by the 1/4 of a second limitation and the lack of a shutter priority mode. 

Aperture
The widest aperture the built-in lens can manage is f/3.5 at the wide end of the range and f/5.0 at the telephoto range. Olympus did not specify a minimum aperture for either end of the zoom range.

Image Stabilization
The 1050SW offers digital image stabilization, where the camera will boost the shutter speed and ISO to try and eliminate blur. Although this helps, it is not usually as effective as optical image stabilization.

Picture Quality / Size Options
The 1050SW offers two choices for image compression: Fine and Normal. For image size, the range goes from 3648 x 2736 pixels right down to 640 x 480, with several stops along the way.

Picture Effects Mode
The 1050SW does not offer any picture effects while shooting, but you can transform pictures after they have been shot  to make them look black and white or sepia if you feel inclined.


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