Olympus MJU 7000 Review

The Olympus MJU 7000 is marketed as a digital camera for travelers and holidaymakers. This is due to its longer zoom lens in a relatively small body. It has 7x zoom and 12 megapixels. In terms of ease of use this is a relatively straightforward point and shoot digital camera. Olympus has also included a large 3 inch LCD screen and image stabilisation.

The extra zoom in a smaller body certainly is likely to be very useful. You should also find the camera easy to use.

Outdoor 1 (Medium Zoom)
The MJU 7000 gets off to a solid start. On the whole I am happy with the level of detail in the picture, although I can see this dips in shady areas. For example the name on the front boat is not as clear as it could be.

Outdoor 2 (No Zoom)
Focusing is about average when the zoom is not being used. Landscape shots like this one take smaller digital cameras outside of their comfort zones, but as long as you do not look to go overboard in terms of print size the MJU 7000 should be able to produce acceptable landscape shots.

Outdoor 3 (Maximum Zoom)
You can see the advantage this longer lens offers over the more standard lenses on other compact digital cameras. Focusing is true towards the centre of the shot, but there is slippage as you move towards the edges.

Outdoor 4 (Building)
As with other Olympus digital cameras in this range focusing is not as pin sharp as other brands such as Canon manage. If on the whole you are looking to produce snapshot sized prints this should not be a big deal. The difference in quality becomes noticeable as you increase print size.

Outdoor Portrait
This is the most straightforward of my test shots. The colours have a very natural look to them. I have used face detection focusing to ensure the photo is sharp. I would like to have seen the MJU 7000 make the face a touch lighter as I feel the wall in the background looks lighter than the face.

Indoor Portrait with Flash
A lot of the light has been concentrated on the face. This gives slightly uneven lighting. It also leads to some of the light reflecting directly off the face back into the lens.

Indoor Portrait without Flash
The result without using flash is a touch dark. Noise levels have been controlled fairly well, but as with most digital cameras you only need light levels to dip slightly for flash to be required for this type of photo.

Colours
The colours produced by this camera take on a lighter, more natural look than some cameras offer. Here and there I would like to see a little more punch to the colours.

Macro
I think this shot works really well. The level of definition is very good indeed. In super macro mode you can get in as close as 2cm from the subject. This is likely to be close enough for the vast majority of your macro requirements.

ISO 400 and ISO 1600
Olympus manages to ensure that colours remain more or less true when you boost the ISO ratings. Inevitably noise creeps into the picture, but to no lesser or greater degree than you see with other brands.

Overall
The MJU 7000 sits somewhere in the middle rank when it comes to picture quality. There is nothing that really stands out as a big issue.

The shutter lag times are quite good. It took 0.3 seconds for a single picture and 9.98 seconds for five. With flash turned on the times only slipped a small amount. This was to 0.47 seconds for a single picture and 13.3 seconds for five.

Likewise the MJU 7000 posted a solid start up time. It took 2.69 seconds to turn the camera on and take the first photo.

You can compare this camera to other models by taking a look at the Shutter Lag Comparison Table.

There is noting especially striking about the MJU 7000, but it is a pleasant enough looking camera. It is compact without being a truly slim camera. You can choose between silver, black and blue versions.

96.4 x 55.9 x 25.3mm

132g

Lithium Ion.

Olympus has built 16mb of storage into the camera. This is enough for around 6 photos. The camera is compatible with xD and micro SD memory cards.

Click here to save money on xD cards..

Very good. The menu is cut into a few different sections, but each one is easy enough to find your way around. Help text is also available for menu options.

Ease of use - smaller size for longer zoom - good sized screen

Nothing really stands out

There are not many direct competitors to this camera. One that is a bit bigger and offers 10x zoom is the Samsung WB500

The Olympus MJU 7000 offers something different to a lot of digital camera with its longer lens and compact size. It appears to have few, if any, major drawbacks and does a decent enough job. If you would like a smaller camera with some extra zoom it is well worth considering.

Front View

Back View

Top View

Sample Menu

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.

Olympus MJU 7000