Olympus u [mju:] 810 Digital review

Performance
The Olympus µ 810 displayed its best performance figures in burst mode, although its speed comes at a price. Continuous shooting works at only 2,048x1,536-pixel (3-megapixel) and 1,024x768-pixel (sub-megapixel) resolutions. In both resolutions, we were able to squeeze off 12 shots in about 2.6 seconds, for an impressive rate of 4.6fps.

Other shooting speeds were acceptable but not exactly stellar. The camera took 2.7 seconds to power up and shoot after pressing the button. After that, it took a sluggish 3 seconds from shot to shot, bumping up to 3.5 seconds with the onboard flash enabled. Shutter lag was an adequate 0.7 seconds when shooting a high-contrast subject, slowing to a less adequate 1.5 seconds with a low-contrast subject.

The camera's autoset higher ISO settings help extend the camera's tiny built-in flash range to 5m. Coverage was fairly even, although the red-eye-prevention feature did a poor job. Bright Capture made the LCD nicer to view indoors under dim lighting, but we noticed some ghosting. Unfortunately, the display tends to wash out in bright sunlight.
 

Shooting speed
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Time to first shot

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon PowerShot SD630

1.9 

1.4 

0.5 

Fujifilm FinePix V10

2 

1.5 

0.5 

Casio Exilim EX-Z60

1.8 

2 

0.6 

Olympus µ 810 Digital

3 

2.7 

0.7 

Pentax Optio W10

3.6 

3.5 

0.7 

Nikon Coolpix P3

3 

4.1 

0.9 

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ3

2.6 

2.9 

1 

Image quality
Image quality was generally good, with plenty of detail in both highlights and shadows, and we noticed fewer JPEG artefacts than we've seen in other recent compact cameras. Highlights tended to blow out, and we saw textbook examples of lateral chromatic aberrations: well-defined cyan and magenta ghost images, respectively, to the left and the right of high-contrast subjects.

Noise is the biggest problem with the Olympus µ 810 Digital. Quite visible by ISO 400, it added a distinct texture to most images at ISO 800 and above. Unless you're a fanatic about grain or don't try to print or view the images at too large a setting, you'll probably find this camera's high-ISO shots acceptable, especially compared to the alternative of dark, blurry pictures. The digital image-stabilisation feature provided one to two stops of blur protection.

Edited by Will Greenwald
Additional editing by Nick Hide