Olympus Stylus 550UZ Customer Reviews

The SP-550UZ features the world’s most powerful zoom lens, offering maximum shooting versatility for travel, sports and everyday use. The 18x super telephoto zoom gets you closer to the action than any compact digital camera on the market. The 2-in-1 blur solution Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization keeps your shot steady by compensating for camera shake and freezes the action with high ISO sensitivity along with faster shutter speeds. Record TV-quality AVI movies close up with sound 640×480 at 30 fps up to the capacity of your xD card.

Olympus Stylus 550UZ Technical Details
* 7.1-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 15 x 20-inch prints
* 18x super-telephoto zoom lens; 15fps high-speed sequential shooting
* 2.5-inch, high-resolution LCD screen
* Bright Capture technology for low-light photography and image viewing
* Stores images on xD Picture Cards
Reviewer: Hiram Grant “just call me Sam”

After leading the way in digital point-and-shoots in the early part of the decade, Olympus had fallen on hard times. Not that their cameras weren’t any good, it’s just that they weren’t anything special. With the SP-550uz (and a few other cameras), Olympus has really stepped it up.First, this is one heck of a nice looking camera (the photos don’t do it justice), and feels equally good in your hands (nice heft with the 4 AA batteries). The dials looks sharp and appears to be solid.

In operation, the camera works very well. The tremendous 18x optical zoom is smooth and not too noisy. The rear and internal LCDs are good, although I prefer the Sony internal LCD. The selector dial is easy to read, and the extremely helpful photo/descriptions that appear when you set the dial make it easy to figure out how to use the camera. Their “guide” mode is a wonderful addition for the beginner.

The “dual” image stabalization is a nice touch (but not a cure-all). The mechanical stabalizer is great for letting you hold the camera steady, but it doesn’t really help as much for moving objects. The high ISO mode is more properly called an anti-blur mode, as it simply boost the ISO. This helps stop moving objects, but at a sacrifice in quality. High ISOs simply aren’t very good on compact cameras, period.

Anyone who’s read my reviews knows that I’m not a big fan of the xD cards. They’re OK, but not a easy to find, or priced as competitively, as the SD cards.

Some recommended accessories are rechargable batteries and their lens adapter, if you think you might ever want to pick up filters or add-on lenses. These are tubes are sometimes difficult to find when the cameras are first out, but are really difficult to find once they’ve been discountinued, so get one early.

Overall, a camera at the top of the heap (along with the newly announced Sony DSC-H9).

Reviewer:R. Stauber (Mt. Holly, NJ USA)

I got the camera about a week ago and highly recommend it. If you buy a this camera, I recommend getting an H type card which is much faster than the M type for taking pictures. Some movie functions to not work to full capability with the M type but do with the faster H type. I also recommend getting NIMH 2700 mah batteries and charger. Their higher capacity is worth the money and will save over the long run.As far as the camera goes, I wish the camera was higher than 7.1 mp, but compared to my old 3.3 mp camera, the pictures are so much clearer and finer. The camera has many functions build in, and you will need to read the manual to get full use of the camera. Out of the box AUTO mode works well, but after reading the manual, I think most higher end users will want to set their own modes.

Some nice included functions are the manual ability, the ability to choose among 15 different shooting types (such as through a window), and the ability to store raw images among others. Storing raw images is slow due to the large file size and can take several seconds on an M type card.

Movie mode is able to take 30 fps at 640X480, but 15 fps is still good quality. With the M type card you can only take 15 seconds of movies at full mode, but H type you can fill your memory card. The default setting form movies is without sound so you will need to turn this on.

Image Stablization was nicely setup and can be set with just the push of a button rather than going through the Menu. Also, the eyepiece viewfinder is setup so that if the display on the back is on, the viewfinder is off and vice-versa. In fact when you use the eyepiece viewfinder, the picture that is normally displayed on the back is now in the eyepiece. I suppose this is good for taking pictures when it is too bright to see the back screen.

Finally, I like to take weather shots and this camera includes a time lapse mode, which I can put together with my old software (not Olympus) into a movie.

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