CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 06/10/2003
- Released on: 03/01/2003
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| That little, pink plastic piece flips over the memory card to secure it. |
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| Every button serves double duty. |
Though the Stylus 300 is sleek and attractive, some of its design elements are on the quirky side. You turn the camera on by sliding open the lens cover; like many similar models, it turns off when you push the cover until it touches the lens, wait for the lens to retract, then close the cover all the way. This process can take an annoying extra few seconds. Unlike its competitors, the device also uses a superfluous plastic flap to secure the memory card. Having to flip this closed when swapping cards is doubly irritating. The memory slot is on the side, enabling you to change media while the unit is mounted in a tripod, but the battery door on the bottom is blocked during tripod use.
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 You select one of the camera's five scene modes via a virtual mode dial. |
Among the other meager options are the panorama mode (which works with only Olympus memory cards) and the 2-in-1 mode, which combines two half-width pictures into a full-width shot. You have a choice of five image sizes, ranging from 640x480 to the camera's maximum 2,048x1,538 pixels; you can choose between compression settings only at the highest resolution. The 15-frames-per-second QuickTime movie mode is also extremely limited, capable of shooting only up to 16 seconds of silent footage at 320x240 or 70 seconds at 160x120.
As a nice bonus, the camera includes a small, one-button wireless remote for when you want to be in the photo or when you don't want to risk shaking the camera during a long exposure.
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 This small battery stores lots of power. |
Other aspects of the Stylus 300's performance don't quite measure up. The continuous-shooting mode behaves unpredictably. We couldn't spot any relationship between the number of shots captured and the usual variables, and sometimes the camera simply stopped snapping photos. Using red-eye reduction introduces about 3 seconds of lag between the shutter-button press and the image capture. Be sure to warn your subjects to remain still. The 3X optical zoom lens moves quickly through its range, but it continues for a fraction of a second after you release the switch. And the camera lacks a focus-assist lamp, relying instead on image contrast. This approach worked quickly and well in bright sunlight, but a number of our indoor pictures emerged somewhat out of focus.
Conversely, the bright, sharp LCD is fine for shooting indoors and in the shade, but under direct sunlight, it becomes washed-out and difficult to see. In the latter situation, the optical viewfinder works well, but it shows less than 80 percent of the actual scene.The Stylus 300 delivers decent images. The automatic white balance is very good, even under tricky tungsten lighting; the presets produce slightly cooler tones. Though pleasing, colors tend to be a bit oversaturated.
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| The Stylus 300 Digital produces highly saturated colors. |
Because of aggressive in-camera postprocessing, this model's pictures are quite a bit sharper than its competitors'. They showed good detail in our tests, with individual grass blades and cat hairs clearly defined--when the images were in focus. In an above-average number of indoor and shade photos, either the subject or the entire frame looked out of focus. Also, some noise was evident in the shaded areas of outdoor scenes and throughout indoor flash shots, even though the camera automatically set ISO sensitivity to 80. We believe the sharpening exacerbates the noise.
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| Images look relatively sharp, but you can spot noise in solid-color patches, even at a low ISO 80 setting. |
The image quality also falls short of the competition's because of the Stylus 300's compressed dynamic range; it does an especially poor job with highlights. In our outdoor test pictures, dark and midrange tones displayed good definition and accurate color, but highlight areas tended to blow out and generate a haze over neighboring dark portions.
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| Mild lens flare, exacerbated by in-camera postprocessing and poor tonal-range capture in highlight areas, produces this odd white haze. |
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Where to buy
Stylus 300 Digital Camera:
$19.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$19.99 | Yes |
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