Auto Mode (7.0)
The auto mode is more accurately called a program mode. It is the default mode on this digital camera and is designated by a camera icon and a ‘P’. Ironically, the most manual control is available from the program mode, as the options are more limited in the scene modes. From the auto mode, users can still activate the macro, flash, self-timer, and exposure compensation adjustments, and they have full access to the menu system.
Movie Mode (3.5)
It’s difficult to find the QuickTime movie mode for the Olympus Stylus 720SW.
Many other models have this mode on a dial next to the auto and scene selections. However, the 720SW files the movie mode at the bottom of the scene menu, as if it is a scene itself.
Movie mode records video and audio simultaneously. The audio picks up subjects well, but also records handling noise too. Movie size options are: 640 x 480, 320 x 240, and 160 x 120, all of which shoot at an archaic 15 frames per second, making the movie resemble a flip-book. Optical zoom is not unavailable, and digital zoom looks awful.
The camera beeps, reminiscent of a microwave, when the movie starts and stops. Users can turn this off in the setup menu. The movie mode allows access to metering and white balance options, so the user can tweak the video clip.
Drive / Burst Mode (7.5)
This digital camera markets an incredibly fast burst mode, but doesn’t utilize the entire image sensor. This Stylus can shoot up to 11 frames at 3.7 frames per second, but only at a reduced resolution of 2048 x 1536. In standard burst mode, the camera can also shoot up to 6 frames at a speed of 1.1 fps and full resolution. Unfortunately, this is still much behind the competition. Of note is the self-timer, which blinks for 12 seconds before capturing the shot.
Playback Mode (7.0)
A designated button makes playback mode easy to enter and exit, and the mode itself offers many options. Pictures can be displayed one at a time or in index frames of 4 or 9 images. Users can zoom in on photos, edit them, and erase them. When the Menu button is pressed, the following options appear: Slide Show, Edit, Print Order, Calendar, Playback Menu, Setup, Index, Erase, and Album.
The slide show comes with two options to make the standard show more elaborate: users can turn background music on and off and can choose fade, slide, and zoom transitions between pictures. However, they can’t choose how long each picture appears, whether to play the slideshow on a loop, or the background music. Instead, the show repeats until stopped and repeats two lines of elevator music, suitable for a company presentation but out of place for sports pictures, shots of a family reunion, and the sort of adventurous photos the 720SW seems made for.
The in-camera editing options available on the 720SW are fairly extensive: Resize, Red-Eye Fix, Black and White, Sepia, Frame Title, Calendar, Brightness, and Saturation. While many models include resizing and color options, the frame title and calendar options are still a rarity. Amazingly, these options are almost exactly the same ones in the included software. On the initial playback menu screen, pictures appear in index frames: users can either select all of them to be printed or pick and choose by tagging the thumbnails. Deleting pictures is done in the same index frame setup, but users who want to delete a single image can avoid the awful menu system by tapping the bottom of the multi-selector.
A Calendar option allows users to choose photos and pair them with months and years; the camera saves the pages as separate files for easy printing later. Users can also organize massive numbers of photos with the Album function, which provides an index frame setup for creating folders and filing pictures into them. Finally, as if the menu didn’t include enough options, Olympus added an Index feature, which gives users a view already available with the wide zoom button.
In general, the playback mode is quite thorough and offers many interesting options. The menu system is unintuitive, though, and entering the playback feature itself requires quite a few taps on the multi-selector.
Custom Image Presets (8.0)
Scene modes are the bread and butter of this digital camera. The Olympus Stylus 720SW has 23 scene modes in its portfolio Portrait, Landscape, Landscape + Portrait, Night Scene, Night + Portrait, Sport, Indoor, Candle, Self-Portrait, Available Light Portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, Museum, Cuisine, Behind Glass, Documents, Auction, Shoot & Select 1, Shoot & Select 2, Beach & Snow, Under Water Wide 1, Under Water Wide 2, and Under Water Snapshot. When users scroll through these, a guide shows a visual example and a text explanation. For example, scrolling to the Portrait scene calls up a picture of a person’s face and shoulders and the following statement: “Portrait: For taking a portrait-style shot.” Perhaps this isn’t the most helpful explanation for someone who doesn’t already know what a portrait is, but it’s better than nothing.
The Auction mode works like an exposure bracketing function: it takes three pictures at various exposure levels, all at a small image size that can easily be uploaded to online auction sites. Shoot & Select modes are for action shots and allow users to save shots immediately after taking them. Available Light, like Museum and Candle modes, is for shooting sensitive subjects in lowlight conditions without a flash. This resembles Anti-Shake, which uses an internal gyrosensor to detect horizontal and vertical movement, then corrects it with algorithms. Although both Available Light and Anti-Shake use digital rather than more accurate optical image stabilization, they’re both better than nothing.
Unfortunately, scene modes only take pictures as large as 2048 x 1536 pixels, and given the noise from these images, even a even a 4 x 6-inch print won’t look very good. The Self-Portrait mode won’t flatter photographers, especially when the flash is used and the bright spot appears to one side. Behind Glass works surprisingly well, as it eliminates the natural glare that occurs on windows. The Documents mode doesn’t work well unless the flash is activated; otherwise, papers generally look blurry and useless.
All of the underwater scene modes had issues with focusing. A swim in the bathtub yielded some lackluster pictures from the Olympus Stylus 720SW, in which images of the duck were blurry and pictures of the baby’s toes were ghostly. One good shoot, with the lens above water and the flash below, captured an image of brightly lit water completely stopped in its splashy state. However, the majority of the pictures were sub-par. Granted, water is a difficult and finicky medium for subjects, but the Stylus markets itself as the hottest underwater camera available.
Overall, the scene mode selection is vast but some of the modes are redundant. The biggest disappointment is that half of the modes only use 3 megapixels. Menu problems also showed up in scene modes: users must press the mode button, then scroll through the Program and Anti-shake options to get to the Scene mode selections. A time lag between when the button is pushed and when the camera registers the change will cause users to push the button multiple times and actually scroll over their desired mode.
