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

The dial is hard to read since Olympus thought white on silver might be a good idea.

It is not! - But you can see on the display what you dialed.

The flap for the battery and the memory card needs to be locked manually and the tiny plastic cover for the Olympus special USB/video and mini HDMI port is very flimsy and cheap.

the display is reflective

Shooting a still image with movie clip mode
records a only VGA clip with a few seconds before and after the shot. During the shot the image pauses noticeably.
Because of the low res, this function is useless to me.

First pictures

Olympus SZ-30MR lossless crop original size ISO 80

This is the best one from 6 shots with and without flash - the focus was on the little guy
The Sony and the Canon did not do much better in finding the right focus.

Olympus SZ-30MR 24x with flash click for original size lossless crop

The first panorama impressions

If you shoot Manual
Three frames are taken and combined by the camera. The user composes the shots using the guide frame and manually releases the shutter.
The guide is a nearly invisible piece of the last picture what I could not make out alt all in the sun.

Olympus SZ-30MR Manual panorama mode max hight 1032 pixel click for original size lossless crop

If you shoot Auto
Panorama images are automatically combined just by swinging the camera in the shooting direction. Press the shutter button once to begin the sequence.

Olympus SZ-30MR Auto panorama mode max hight 720 pixel click for original size lossless crop

If you shoot Auto 360
Panorama images are automatically combined just by swinging the camera in the shooting direction. Press the shutter button once to begin the sequence.

Olympus SZ-30MR Auto panorama mode max hight 720 pixel click for original size lossless crop

These panoramas are utterly useless for me. The quality is just abysmal even compared to the simple Sony HX5 in camera panoramas where I can reach at least 2000 x 5000 with a better quality.

The start up and playback is snappy with the Olympus and the Canon while the Sony often takes more than double the time to react.
The on screen image stabilisation is good with the Canon and Sony to full zoom while the Olympus shows visible shake already at half zoom and with my hands 24 x is shaking quite bad.
Compared to the 20 x Sony HX1 where the picture on the display is quite steady.