Olympus SP-550 UZ review

Typical price: £300

What is it: Superzoom digital camera with massive 18x optical zoom

What we think: Great ergonomics, but slow performance and noisy images drag it down

6.3

Sensor resolution	7.1 megapixels
Optical sensor type	CCD
Effective sensor resolution	7,100,000 pixels
Gross sensor resolution	7,400,000 pixels
Optical sensor size	1/2.5 in.
Light sensitivity	ISO 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
Digital zoom	5.6 x
Shooting programs	Snow, Beach, Candle, Indoor, Sunset, Auction, Cuisine, Documents, Fireworks, Landscape, Night scene, Sports mode, Portrait mode, Night portrait, Panorama assist, Shoot & select 1, Shoot & select 2, Underwater macro, Underwater wide 1, Underwater wide 2, Landscape-portrait, Candlelight portrait, Available light portrait
Special effects	Sepia, Frames, Black & White
Max shutter speed	1/2000 s
Min shutter speed	15 s
Continuous shooting speed	10 fps
Exposure metering	Multi-segment, Centre-weighted
Exposure modes	Bulb, Manual, Program, Shutter-priority, Aperture-priority
Exposure compensation	±2 EV range, in 1/3 EV steps
Auto exposure bracketing	5 steps in 1/3 EV step
White balance	Custom, Presets, Automatic
White balance presets	Overcast, Sunlight, Tungsten light, Fluorescent light (daylight), Fluorescent light (cool white), Fluorescent light (warm white)
Still image format	RAW, JPEG
Digital video format	AVI

Flash type	Pop-up
Flash modes	Auto mode, Fill-in mode, Slow synchro, Flash OFF mode, Red-eye reduction
Red-eye reduction	Yes
Other features	Flash +/- compensation

Viewfinder type	Electronic
Display type	LCD display - TFT active matrix
Display mounting	Fixed
Display size	64 mm
Display resolution	230,000 pixels

Expansion slots	1x XD-Picture Card

Type	1x Composite video/audio output, 1x USB, 1x DC power input

Operating system	MS Windows ME, MS Windows XP, MS Windows 2000, MS Windows 98 SE, MS Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS 9.0 - 9.2, Apple Mac OS X 10.1 or later