Olympus SZ-30MR - basics

16MP BSI C-MOS, 24X optical zoom lens, equivalent to 25 - 600 mm, 9 frames/sec to 5 shots, 1080p video and 16MP stills at the same time, sweep panorama, 3" 460k screen

first preview

the complete user manual is already out
looks like Olympus moved the release from April to October 2011
and you can imagine my surprise when I found her in May while the Sony HX7V and HX9V are no where to see on my island.

Olympus SZ-30MR - first impressions

The Olympus SZ-30MR is quite light and has a pleasing gun metal finish. The whole plastic body is pretty sturdy and thanks to the pronounced grip and the little rubber thumb rest secure to hold.

the flash needs to be released manually to work

Olympus SZ-30MR - Sony HX5 - Canon S2 - comparing image quality

Full zoom image quality compared

Canon S2 original size lossless crop -12x

Olympus SZ-30MR - Sony HX5 - comparing video quality

Olympus shot with 1080p 30fps - Sony Shot with 1080i 50fps. Shot hand held with 2 hands.

Olympus SZ-30MR 1080p click for original size lossless crop

Olympus SZ-30MR - Sony HX5 - Canon S2 - comparing resized image quality

As I mentioned in my HX9V blog, the best way to be happy with the 16 MP sensor is to resize drastically.
In this comparison all pictures are resized to 5 MP, saved with 75% compression and then lossless cropped.

Canon S2 click for original size lossless crop
the left side of my S2IS always had problems with softness no matter how I twist the camera or the subject

Olympus SZ-30MR - last words

What I liked about the Olympus SZ-30MR

- fast start up, shut down and snappy menu navigation.
- design and grip
- shooting full size images while recording video
- low light video performance
- huge drop in original price direct at launch
- bright display in low light situations


What I did not like about the Olympus SZ-30MR