Olympus was one of the first manufacturers to realize that building digicams around small sensors allows much longer zooms to be offered without the bulk of the camera becoming unmanageable. With its "Ultra zoom" range, starting back in 2000 with the 1.3MP C-2100UZ, Olympus almost single-handedly created a niche for digicams offering 10X optical zooms in relatively compact formats. Over the years, that niche has developed into a popular and fiercely fought market segment.
Realizing that the utility of a 10X zoom was great enough to make many users overlook the compromises that such a large zoom range entails, Olympus decided to investigate whether customers would put up with still more compromises if the zoom range was even greater. The result was the SP-550UZ with its astonishing 18X zoom range. And, just a few months later, the Olympus was joined on the market by similar offerings from Panasonic and Fuji, suggesting it wasn't alone in its thinking. So here we have Olympus' second-generation 18X zoom camera, the SP-560UZ. The question is, having lost its unique selling point, can the Olympus still make a convincing pitch for your money, and have the SP-550's shortcomings been overcome? Let's find out...
Headline features
- 18X optical zoom, giving a 27mm-486mm equiv. range
- Dual IS, combining sensor shift technology with high ISO settings
- 8.0 million pixel sensor
- ISO 6400 at 3.1MP
- ISO 3200 at full resolution
- RAW mode
- Face detection
- Face detection-combined In-camera red-eye reduction
- Rapid continuous shooting (up to 15fps at 2MP)
- 25 scene modes
- Smile mode (waits for subject to smile)
- Expression Edit
- Shadow Adjust
- Control of off-board flashguns, with latest firmware
