Rugged camera good, not perfect
Drop the average digital camera on a rocky trail and it could be all over. But not so for the Olympus Stylus 1050 SW.
In my test, the tough handheld took a drop from 5 feet onto solid stone and kept on clicking.
Available this month for $300, the Stylus 1050 SW is the latest version of the Olympus ( www.olympusamerica.com) ruggedized camera. The camera is made for outdoorsy types and has the requisite functionality expected in a point-and-shoot plus the ability to grab 10.1 megapixels of resolution – enough pixels to print out poster-size photographs of your latest summit pose.
I swam 10 feet underwater with the Stylus 1050 SW running in movie mode. It’s also functioned fine outdoors in temperatures near freezing. A solid build has kept the camera safe and fully functioning despite abuse.
The camera weighs about 6 ounces and measures 3.7 by 2.4 by 0.76 inches – to slip into any pocket. A flip-open shutter guard protects the flash and optics and provides a quick way to turn the camera on and off.
A neat new feature is the Tap Control, which lets you change modes, flash setting and shadow compensation via taps on the edge of the camera body.
Its photographic performance is on par with other point-and-shoots in this price range but only mediocre if you’re used to the crisp imagery produced from an SLR.
I’ve found the camera’s auto mode unpredictable for good outdoors photography. Several times the camera had trouble quickly focusing on the subject and often overexposed bright skies and backgrounds. Few photos taken in this mode were tack sharp.
But the camera is packed with modes to help the average user get a good photograph. There’s a mode for shooting underwater and one for snow, as examples. Advanced shooters can adjust white balance, ISO, focus settings and other manual features.
In automatic modes, the camera suffers from shutter lag – a delay when you press the button. But you can overcome the lag by employing Olympus’ Drive mode, which allows for multiple frames per second.