Manual Control Options
The Stylus 410 Digital is aimed at the general point-and-shoot crowd and doesn’t offer a great deal of manual control options. Aside from a few adjustments, most control options are taken care of automatically.

Auto Focus (7.5)
The Olympus Stylus 410 employs a TTL (through the lens) automatic focus system. There is an automatic focus lock on the Stylus 410 that enables the user to focus on subjects that are not in the center of the frame. When necessary, the user can move the focus on the desired subject and partially depress the shutter release button. This will lock the focus on the distance of the intended subject. With the shutter still held, the user can recompose the frame while retaining the focus plane. When the focus is locked, a green light will come on and remain lit, locking the focus, exposure and white balance. If the green bulb flashes, the subject is too close and the image will not be in proper focus. This allows enough flexibility for the user to dictate the focal composition of the image without the need to manually rotate a ring or fumble with multiple settings.

The Stylus 410 has a focal range of 20” (0.5 m) – infinity in Normal mode, 8”– 20” (0.2 m -0.5 m) in Macro mode, and 3.5”– 8” (0.09 m -0 .2 m) in Super Macro mode.

Metering (6.5)
The metering system on the Olympus Stylus 410 Digital is pretty basic, and is accessed through the first menu. It offers ESP Multi-pattern metering as the default and Spot metering as an option. Multi-pattern metering incorporates both the center and surrounding areas into its metering configuration, and is usable in most shooting situations. Spot metering meters for the center of the image, and is available for situations where the user wants to make sure the center of the picture is measured accurately.

Exposure (7.0)
The Olympus Stylus 410 Digital allows the user to adjust the exposure while shooting to compensate for inaccurate metering or extreme shooting conditions. This is accessed in Shooting mode by pressing the OK/Menu button and selecting the Exposure compensation option indicated by the +/- icon. Once activated, the user can adjust in 1/3 intervals to +2 to -2, which is pretty standard for most digital cameras.

White Balance (3.5)
The Olympus Stylus 410 Digital allows the user to choose between Auto White balance and four preset White balance settings: Sunlight, Overcast, Tungsten and Fluorescent. It’d be nice to see a manual setting, but the average point-and-shooter isn’t going to miss that option in this camera. Olympus has tailored this camera appropriately for the basic shooter.

ISO (5.5)
Although the ISO function is present on the Olympus Stylus 410 Digital, it is not manually controllable. The Auto feature is equivalent to ISO 64 – 480; a pretty good range for this type of camera, but the lack of manual control is quite limiting.

Shutter Speed (0.0)
The shutter speed on the Olympus Stylus 410 Digital is controlled automatically and has a 1/2 second – 1/1000^th second range. (This goes up to 4 seconds in Night Scene mode.) We understand that this camera is aimed at the low-maintenance consumer, but having all of these camera features automated gets a little annoying. This leaves little room for any sort of adjustment for difficult shooting situations.

Aperture (0.0)
As with the shutter speed, the aperture on the Olympus Stylus 410 Digital is automatic. The lens opens up to f/3.1 at the wide angle setting and f/5.2 when in telephoto. Olympus deems these features as unimportant to lower level point-and-shooters. This may very well be the case, but doing so runs the risk of alienating those who might care about manual control.