The Olympus SP 350 is a full featured, eight megapixel digital camera. It is priced to allow anyone who sees photography as a hobby or would like to experiment with photography the chance to buy digital. Offering fully manual exposure and a host of other advanced features the SP 350 is aimed at an area of the market where it has few competitors. When you consider what is packed inside it is also pleasing to see the camera has managed to retain a neat, compact design.
Image Quality
Perhaps as the SP 350 is an eight megapixel digital camera it should not come as a major surprise to find that almost all the photos I took were clear and sharp. In fact leaving aside one indoor shot this camera managed to produce some of the most sharply focused shots I have taken.
Starting with the outdoor scenic shots there are a number of impressive points. For a start I like the colours this camera manages to produce. They are bright with plenty of depth without going over the top and having a slightly unreal feel to them. This produces great skies and areas of foliage. As I stated above the clarity of each photograph is certainly worth mentioning. Not only are the photos sharply focused in the centre there is a crispness to the images right up to the edge that you rarely see. Areas of high contrast are handled well although there are areas of the photos where a level of detail is lost. This is normal and I would say that some of the more reflective areas are handled better than most cameras manage.
For the outdoor portrait I have used flash. This helps to liven up this type of photo in late autumn and winter. I have a slight reservation with the SP 350 as other cameras have controlled the level of flash better. This means that the picture taken with this camera is lighter than I would have liked and you can see the flash has been used. The alternative is a rather dull shot. As you get to know the camera you will notice that you can reduce the power of the flash unit. This is likely to help with this type of shot.
The test for colour supports my observations made for the outdoor scenic shots. The colours are strong without being overpowering.
Moving indoors we come to the one shot where I would have liked to have seen the camera do better. The indoor portrait shot although better than many I have taken is still not as sharply focused as I like to see. There is also red eye prominent in the shot as well. Although I have left the sample shot unchanged there is a red eye reduction feature you can use after the photo has been taken. I found that it worked very well indeed and more or less completely eliminated all traces of red eye. This is separate to the red eye reduction flash setting.
The other indoor test in poor light is taken in almost complete darkness. Here the camera manages to produce an excellent shot. The focusing is more or less spot on and the shot is well lit too. Here the camera is helped by the auto focus (AF) illuminator that lights up the subject a split second before the photo is taken to help with focusing.
Finally the camera manages to produce a very good macro shot. The image is bright, clean and clear.
Shutter Lag and Recycling Times
I managed to take a single shot in 0.53 seconds. This is a slow time. It took 13.15 seconds to take five consecutive shots. This works out at a rate of one photo every 2.63 seconds. What a shame. With all the features this camera has and the image quality I feel it is let down by shutter lag. If you are planning to take a picture of anything that moves there is a clear danger you will miss the shot.
You can compare this camera to other models by taking a look at the Shutter Lag Comparison Table.
Features
The three times optical zoom lens has a focal length equivalent to 38 - 114mm in 35mm format. It has an aperture range from f2.8 to f8. The optical zoom is supported by a 5x digital zoom. For close up work the camera can focus from 2cms away from the subject.
For composing and reviewing images there is a large 2.5 inch LCD screen. The screen has a brightness control to help you to see the screen in bright conditions and also in lowlight. It is made up of around 115,000 pixels. If you prefer you can use the optical viewfinder to compose your shots with.
Focusing is catered for by both manual focusing and auto focusing. Both spot and area focusing can be used. To help the camera in dark conditions there is an auto focus (AF) illuminator.
There is a large selection of scene modes. These help the camera to take the best possible shot for the type of photo you are taking. All you need to do is select the most appropriate scene. The scene modes are: Portrait, Landscape, Landscape and Portrait, Night Scene, Night & Portrait, Sports, Indoor, Candle, Self Portrait, Available Light Portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, Museum, Cuisine, Behind Glass, Documents, Auction, Shot & Select 1, Shot & Select 2, Beach, Snow, Underwater Wide 1, Underwater Wide 2 and Underwater Macro.
When you are taking a picture you can record a brief sound bite at the same time. This helps you to remember the moment later on. The camera can also be used as a voice recorder. For when you would like to appear in the picture yourself there is a self timer with a ten second delay.
The built in flash unit has a range of 3.8m. This falls to 2.2m when the zoom lens is in use. You can adjust the power of the flash.
Saturation, contrast and sharpness settings can be adjusted and a histogram is available when shooting to help produce the correct exposure. The camera has a My mode that allows you to store up to four of your favourite settings.
You can take full control over the exposure. As well as fully manual exposure you can choose aperture or shutter priority.
Among the more advanced features are light metering (Digital ESP metering, spot metering, centre weighted metering), shutter speeds of 15 - 1/2000 seconds (plus a bulb setting of up to 8 minutes) exposure compensation (+/- 2EV in 1/3 EV steps) and auto bracketing (Up to 5 frames in 1/3 EV steps).
You can adjust sensitivity to one of the following settings 50, 100, 200 or 400. The camera can also set sensitivity automatically. There are a range of white balance settings. These are Overcast, Sunlight, Evening Sun, Tungsten, Fluorescent1, Fluorescent2, Fluorescent3. White balance can also be set manually. There is even a setting that allows you to adjust the white balance to increase blue or red levels.
Burst shooting is available. In high speed mode you can take two shots in just under a second. In normal mode you can reel off eight images at a top speed of 1.4 shots per second. Time lapse movies can be made. You can shoot up to 99 images.The delay in between each picture can be set for between one minute and an hour. Panoramic landscapes can be stitched together as long as the memory card you are using is made by Olympus.
Still images can be recorded in RAW format as well as Jpeg.
There are a number of features you can use to change a photo once it has been taken. For example you can adjust the brightness and saturation or change the photo to black and white or sepia. On top of this you can rotate the image, create a smaller copy suitable for sending by email or displaying on a computer monitor and also crop the image. If a portrait is affected by red eye there is also a facility to repair it. I tried this feature and I was actually very impressed by it.
Movies can be recorded at a maximum resolution of 640 x 480. The top speed is 30 frames per second. This is good enough for TV playback. The duration of each movie is only limited by the capacity of the card. You can zoom in and out while a movie is being recorded and digital image stabilisation is available for movies too.
Olympus provides all the necessary cables and software to connect the SP 350 to a PictBridge compatible printer, television set and a computer.
To increase the capability of the camera there is also a hot shoe that allows you to add an external flash unit to the camera. To increase the power of the lens you can add conversion lenses. To add a conversion lens you need the adapter CLA-9. Once this is fitted you can add either a 1.7x telephoto converter (TCON-17F) or a 0.7x wide angle converter (WCON-07F).
Olympus also have available an underwater case, the PT-030 for using the SP 350 underwater. The case is waterproof to a depth of 40m.
Ease of Use
Any camera with this number of features will take a while to get to grips with. To help you there is an in camera guide that explains all the menu options to you. These are starting to become more popular on digital cameras and although they are fairly basic it is a step in the right direction.
Some options are tucked away in the menu system, such as macro mode and self timer, but other than that this is a well thought out camera.
Cost
You can pick up a Olympus SP 350 for around £240. This compares to around £225 for a Canon Powershot A620, £255 for a Fuji Finepix E900 and £355 for a Panasonic DMC LX1.
If you are looking for a digital camera with manual exposure controls at a reasonable choice then you are not exactly spoilt for choice. The SP 350 at least gives you another model to look at and I would say it is fairly priced.
Style
I really like the style of this camera. Its matt black finish seems to give it a feeling of quality and it fits well in the hand. On the right hand side is a good sized grip to help you keep the camera steady when you are taking a shot. It manages to retain a compact feel with dimensions of 99.5 x 65 x 35 mm. It weighs 195g
Batteries and Memory Card
AA or CR-V3 batteries are used to power the camera. A CR-V3 battery is supplied. In my opinion this camera eats through batteries very quickly. Perhaps it would have been better to use four batteries at a time rather than two. I would strongly recommend buying a set of rechargeable batteries to go with the camera. Otherwise running costs will mount up.
xD Picture cards are used to store images on. Olympus do not supply one with the SP 350 as there are 25mb of storage built into the camera to store images on. I was able to take 15 photos before the internal memory was full. This was using the standard settings. It is therefore likely to be worthwhile picking up a high capacity memory card to go with the camera.
Click here to save money on xD cards..
Points I like:
Sharpness in outdoor shots
Feature set
Record in RAW format
Where it is not so hot:
Battery life
Shutter lag
Summary
The Olympus SP 350 is an advanced digital camera at a very reasonable price. The camera is absolutely packed with features and I like the way the camera handles in general. On the whole photos are incredibly sharp with strong colours. Unfortunately the camera struggled badly in my shutter lag test though. If it wasn't for the shutter lag issue I would be tempted to keep this camera for myself.
Olympus SP 350 Front View
Olympus SP 350 Back View
Olympus SP 350 Top View
Sample Menus
| Olympus SP-350 Summary |
| Description: | 8 megapixels and a 3x optical zoom lens |
| Ease of Use: | 8 |
| Features: | 9 |
| Colour: | 8 |
| Macro: | 9 |
| Indoors: | 7 |
| Value for Money: | 8 |
| Style: | 8 |
| Movie Mode: | 8 |
| Image Quality: | 8 |
| Build Quality: | 8 |
| Total: | 81 |
| Verdict: | I really like the Olympus SP-350. It is literally packed with features. The price makes it possible to buy an advanced digital camera for a low price. It has one big drawback though and that is shutter lag. |
| Review Date: | November 2005 |
| Click for: | Specification Sample Images |
Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, please make sure you double check the feature set and specification at the point of purchase.
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