Olympus Stylus 800

Viewfinder (0.0)
With a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, there was no room remaining for Olympus to include an optical viewfinder on the Stylus 800. While the LCD allows shots to be framed with a 100 percent field of view, without a viewfinder there is no way to frame shots when the battery is low. Additionally, when the camera is moved quickly, the view on the LCD screen is choppy and often out of focus. Users panning quickly or often may be better served by a camera that includes both viewing alternatives.

LCD Screen (8.0)
The large 2.5-inch LCD screen has 215,000 pixels on its 4:3 format display. The LCD features Olympus’ semi-transmissive technology, which it dubs "HyperCrystal." The HyperCrystal screen allows images to be seen even under the brightest sunlight conditions as well as dim conditions (when utilizing the camera’s bright capture technology). The viewing angle on the screen is also impressive; images can be seen clearly at all angles, even almost perpendicular to the screen. The illumination of the screen can be controlled in the Setup section of the mode menu, but the available range offered is not very expansive. Overall, the screen displays images very well, but it is awkwardly applied to the camera body. The LCD protrudes out of the body, leaving one of the camera’s most expensive components exposed and vulnerable.

The DISP button, located to the left of the LCD screen, allows users to toggle through the various displays on the screen: live histogram, superimposed grid, superimposed x and shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, and ISO.

Flash (7.5)
The Stylus 800’s built-in flash is located in the center of the camera, to the left of the lens. With the powerful flash placed off the lens axis, there will be harsh shadows cast along the right of most subjects. Furthermore, the flash’s location is where the user’s right-hand fingers often rest and this may obscure the flash. When images are taken with fingers obscuring the flash, they often take on a red hue, as the powerful flash shines through the user’s finger.

The flash is quite intense for a compact camera; in the Auto shooting mode it can reach 21.3 feet in the wide angle setting and 11.5 feet in the telephoto setting. The flash also functions in macro mode, but not very well. It tends to blow out images and cast a bright white light on the upper right portions of images, owing to the flash’s location. The following flash modes are offered: Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, and Fill-In; there is no slow sync setting.

Zoom Lens (6.5)
The Stylus 800 has an Olympus 3x optical zoom lens that reaches from 8-24mm. This is equivalent to a 38-114mm lens on a 35mm camera. There is also a 5x digital zoom component; however, it is best to resist using it as digital zoom greatly degrades picture quality. The lens boasts an aperture range of f/2.8 – f/8, with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 in wide and f/4.9 in telephoto. The lens can focus from 19.7 inches to infinity in normal shooting mode, 7.9 inches to 19.7 inches in Macro mode, and 1.2 inches to 19.7 inches in Super Macro mode, although in Super Macro the lens takes several seconds to focus on objects closer than about four inches.