Olympus Stylus 720SW

Viewfinder (0.0)
There is no optical viewfinder on the Olympus Stylus 720SW, perhaps because it would be impractical to try and look in a miniscule viewfinder while underwater. Instead, this model uses a LCD screen with live preview. Unfortunately, the screen catches glare easily, is hard to see in bright sunlight, and has a slow refresh rate, so the live preview looks like a flip book when subjects are moving. Still, the view is usable if the camera is perpendicular to the user’s face.

LCD Screen (7.0)
The Olympus 720SW uses Bright Capture Technology, in which nine pixels on the image sensor can combine to produce a single pixel on the LCD, to convey an accurately colored image. There are 115,000 pixels on the 2.5-inch screen, however, so users can see all the tiny red, green, and blue speckles that illuminate to create the picture. Poor resolution isn’t the only problem plaguing the LCD screen: the glare makes viewing the screen almost impossible, as everything looks washed out, and the image is difficult to see in daylight, even when the screen’s brightness is increased. The brightness can be adjusted on a +/- 7 scale in the setup menu in front of a live preview. Overall, the LCD screen is large enough and its technology is formed around a good concept, but the poor resolution and glare impede delivery.

Flash (6.5)
The built-in flash on the 720SW is directly to the left of the lens on the front of the camera. This placement keeps the flash out of the way of fingers, which is often a problem with compact digital cameras, but merely shifts the issue to the lens. The major issue with the side-by-side setup, however, is that the lens captures uneven flash coverage, producing a bright spot toward the right half of the recorded image.

The following modes are available: Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, On, and Off. The red-eye reduction mode could be more accurately titled Auto with Red-Eye Reduction, as it is not guaranteed to fire when activated. When it does activate, it sends out a series of quick flashes sure to irritate any subject in its path. The flash is disabled in the super macro mode, but available in the regular macro mode; however, the small subject and glaring white off-center spot produced by the 720SW flash unit are highly undesirable.

The Olympus 720SW’s flash is effective to 12.5 ft in wide and 8.5 ft in telephoto. Users of this digital camera will find themselves activating the flash often, as it is pretty much the only way to get clear pictures with minimal noise indoors. Occasionally the flash illumination will create a cool visual effect. For example, when this Stylus was immersed halfway into the water – the flash beneath the water and the lens above – it lit up the water and also stopped the droplets as they dripped in mid-air.

Zoom Lens (6.75)
The Olympus Stylus 720SW has a 6.7-20.1 mm zoom lens with an equivalent focal length of 38-114 mm. It stays within the camera body at all times and is constructed of 10 lenses in 8 groups with 3 aspherical elements. Maximum apertures are f/3.5 at the 720SW’s widest focal length and f/5.0 at its most telephoto; these aren’t incredibly fast and cannot be manually selected anyway. The 3x optical zoom lens shows hardly any barrel distortion, so the view is crisp and accurate when unimpeded by the focus system or misplaced fingers. The accompanying auto focus system doesn’t complement the lens very well, and the lens’s placement in the top right front corner puts it in the way of wandering fingers. While the lens itself is generally decent, the placement may compromise its chances for great spontaneous shots.