SP-320 Digital Camera

Pros: Full manual controls. Image quality. Good F range. Macro. Optical viewfinder. Lens thread for conversion lenses/filters.

Cons: Low-res display. Some frustrating, repetative functions. Minor Image demons at high ISO.

Summary: As somebody into digital art, or the advanced amateur whom can't budget for - or just doesn't want to haul a heavy, bulky and expensive DSLR around - then overall I think this is a very good choice in terms of features and image quality compressed into compactness.


THE GOOD:

• Full manual controls for endless creativity - aperture priority (f.2.8 - f.8.0), shutter priority (bulb - 1/2000 sec), manual focus, ISO, brightness, white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpness, B&W/sepia etc etc. These features were once only common on DSLR's.

• Overall great image quality at 64, 100 ISO. As usual good sharpness and colour reproduction by Olympus. Some foliage pictures I've taken are outstanding for the amount of detail they show.

• Optical viewfinder (some cameras exclude them altogether these days - utter, utter lunacy!). It really is an attractive selling point and makes it feel like a 'real' camera.

• 25 scene modes.

• Very good Macro mode 2cm.

• Lens thread for conversion lenses - wide angle, telephoto, fish eye, filters, magnifiers. Another selling point for many.... and ignored by some competitors offerings.

• RAW image format.

• AF (auto focus) assist beam for low-light shooting - behaves better in lowlight than other cameras I've used.

• Uses 2 AA batteries (so no expensive 'specialist' batteries) - the best being NMH 2700 or even better, get CR-V3 rechargeable ones.

• It's a nice designed compact camera with a comfy barrel grip on the right side which tapers to a wedge shape towards the left. It feels well-made and the "gunmetal gray" finish is also a nice touch.

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THE BAD:

• Low res screen - my older, Olympus c-770's one - although smaller - was better.

• Image quality above 200 ISO starts to get noisy, especially in high contrast areas.

• Some awkward menu selections, these being manual focus and turning the display off for optical viewfinder use only. For instance you have to navigate through several buttons/menu's to get the manual focus working. Would like to see separate buttons for these important functions.

• Some functions reset themselves whilst in the modes "AUTO" and "SCENE" (reverts to auto ISO, flash resets to the default "on", white balance reverts to auto). This happens when you turn the camera off then on again in just these said two modes. It's annoying to keep having to flick through menus to turn things off.

• The "Image stabilizer" mode is ISO-based (reverts to high depending on conditions), so practically useless/too grainy for anything other than fun snaps.

• Olympus' Panorama function is getting a bit long in the tooth - you need official Olympus XD cards and the software included on disc for after-shooting stitching. The Olympus SP-320's nearest rivals, the Canon a500 and a600 series, have a stitch function within a camera mode for panorama's. Come on Olympus get your act together on this.

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THE UGLY (annoying... but such a big deal):

• No external hot shoe for flash - this seems to have been kept solely for it's higher spec, but much maligned, specialist-battery-eating-brother, the SP-350. I probably would've brought the SP-350 if it was designed to use AA batteries, because it's always nice to have the possibility of an externally powered flash.

• No beveled edge around the large display to protect from accidental surface scratching. Though you can buy adhesives for protection.

• Pinhead-sized power switch.

• Advanced manual computerized - only on disc or website; not printed material.