Olympus SP-320 review

Image quality
Photos from the Olympus SP-320 look decent -- if you don't compare it to that of other cameras, you could probably be pretty happy with it. Hues are accurate and white balance is neutral, but a lack of dynamic range in the highlights make photos look low-contrast with desaturated colours. JPEG images are soft -- the raw versions unusably so, even after turning up the sharpening as far as possible -- with details falling just shy of resolved. Focus falls off sharply on the left side, producing haloes on light edges. Photos shot at ISO 64 and ISO 100 have little noise, but at ISO 200, the SP-320's odd combination of noise suppression and aggressive sharpening yields a noticeable, mosaic-like grain that is visible on 203x254mm (8x10-inch) prints. With the best cameras in this class, you can shoot as fast as ISO 400 before running into comparable artefacts. (The higher the ISO setting, the faster a shutter speed you can use, but unpleasant artefacts increase too.)

The Olympus SP-310 and the Olympus SP-320 are both competent shooters and compact, feature-rich cameras that are nevertheless outclassed by competitors' speed and photo quality.

Shooting speed
Seconds
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

HP Photosmart R927

2.8 

2.5 

0.3 

Fujifilm FinePix F30

2.5 

2 

0.4 

Canon PowerShot A700

2.1 

1.8 

0.4 

Casio Exilim EX-Z850

2.7 

2.1 

0.5 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W70

1.4 

2.2 

0.5 

Olympus SP-320

2 

2.1 

0.6