The new Olympus SP-350 is a 8-Megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom, large 2.5-inch LCD screen and manual control. I got mine for $328, but it sells for even less now.

Pictures

The pictures of the Olympus SP-350 as well as sample photos I took using it are available at the address below:

Click here to see the sample photos I took with this Olympus SP-350 camera and photos of the camera

What Is Olympus SP-350?

The Olympus SP-350 is an 8-Megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom (38-114 mm equivalent), a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, a zooming optical viewfinder, a built-in flash and a hot shoe for external flash.

The camera has full manual controls with aperture range of f/2.8-8.0 at wide angle, f/4.9-8.0 at telephoto, adjustable in 1/3 EV steps. The shutter speed range is 1/2,000-15 sec. The ISO presets are Auto, 50, 100, 200 and 400. The camera can store images in RAW or JPEG format.

The SP-350 is powered by two AA batteries or one CRV3 battery. It stores images on its 25 MB of internal memory or on an optional xD-Picture memory card. The camera has an A/V out as well as a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed out.

Getting Started

The camera arrived in a typically-blue Olympus box. I took the camera out, inserted my rechargeable NiMH batteries and was ready to shoot (using the built-in memory). The battery compartment lid is made of sturdy plastic and has a secure locking mechanism. It does not require too much effort to close either.

Overall, the camera is very well-made and uses high-quality materials. The fit and finish are superb. The camera looks stylish and its controls have a good tactile feel.

The Camera

The camera is made of black plastic with stylish metallic accents. The top deck has a hot shoe for external flashes, covered by a plastic lid, the mode selection wheel, the zoom control with a shutter release button in the middle.

The front has the extendable lens with an automatically-opening lens lid, the focus assist light, the flash, the microphone and the viewfinder window.

The back has a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, an optical viewfinder, power button and control buttons.

The side has a rigid plastic lid for the memory card compartment and a rubberized lid for the DC power jack, A/V out and the USB 2.0 connector.

The bottom houses the speaker, the plastic tripod mount and the battery compartment door.

In Operation

You turn the camera on by pushing and holding the Power button on the rear panel. The lens extends and the lens lid opens. The camera is turned off in the similar manner.

The camera is very easy to use, especially in its automatic mode (marked Auto on the mode selection wheel). You just have to point and shoot, the camera takes care of the rest. You push the shutter release button halfway to focus and then push it all the way to take a picture.

The camera has numerous scene modes to tweak the shooting parameters to the type of scene you are shooting without having to think too much about the specifics. And it also has manual exposure control (Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual mode) for those who need it.

The parameters are easy to control. For example, in aperture priority mode, you use the up and down buttons to change the aperture and the left and right buttons for exposure compensation. The flash mode is selected by its own dedicated button.

The zooming has good speed, but is noisy with scratching/clicking sounds. The 3x optical zoom range is sufficient for most situations and the 8-Megapixel resolution lets you crop extensively before printing. Alternatively, you can use the camera’s digital zoom (5x digital zoom, 15x combined). But be careful with digital zoom: too much of it will make your photos low-res and blurry.

I personally keep it disabled.

Ergonomics and Easy of Use

The camera is easy to use and its menus are relatively intuitive. They are not as well-designed as menus of Panasonic cameras, but are definitely better than menus of Fuji cameras. They are legible and colorful as well and the large screen helps too.

LCD and Viewfinder

The camera has a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, which works well in all lighting conditions. It is fluid, gains-up (increases brightness in the dark) and has good resolution. The LCD has 100% coverage. The viewfinder works reasonably well too, but its coverage are less than 100% (which is not unusual).

Flexibility

The camera lets you adjust numerous parameters, if you want to. White balance, metering mode (multi-pattern, spot, center-weighted), ISO (Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400), image quality, contrast, saturation, sharpness and more. The camera has a histogram display and even has manual focusing.

Performance

The camera powers on or off in about 2 seconds. The zooming from full wide angle to full telephoto or back also takes about two seconds, but it is noisy.

The camera focuses in under a second in good light. But in dim light, the camera takes up to 2 seconds to focus at wide angle or up to 3 seconds at telephoto (with use of its focus-assist light).

The shutter lag, when pre-focused, is virtually non-existent. I was able to take pictures at a rate of about one every 1.5-2 seconds (including full auto focus), which is about average.

The camera also has a burst mode, in which it can take two pictures in less than a second. In normal-speed burst/continuous mode, the camera takes up to 10 pictures in HQ mode at 1.5 frames per second.

Image Quality

The SP-350 produces excellent photos. The colors are vivid and pleasing. The sky and clouds have pleasing appearance with typical Olympus colors. The objects are sharp and look sharp when printed.

The camera produces photos that are sharp corner-to-corner with only the very corners of the frame having a very small, softness. Not much to speak about. I was able to see only small amounts of chromatic aberration (purple fringing) in the areas of high contrast.

Overall, the image quality is very good.

Noise levels are pretty typical for a consumer-level digital camera. The ISO 50-100 is rather good with no to low noise and print sizes up to 13x19 inches. The ISO 200 has more noise and the ISO 400 is only good for small prints as it has higher noise levels and the detail level is low.

Battery Life

I have not tested the camera's battery life (which obviously depends on the kind of batteries you are using), but was able to take about 60 photos using my 1600 mAh NiMH batteries without seeing the low battery warning.

Flash

The camera has a built-in flash that is of medium power. It works well up to 10-11 feet, but sometimes you have to use positive exposure compensation, otherwise the photos are slightly underexposed.

USB

The camera can be connected to your computer using a USB 2.0 connection. It uses USB 2.0 Hi-Speed standard. Once I connected it to my Windows 2000 computer, the camera powered itself on automatically and appeared as a removable drive on my computer with no need to install any software. The file transfer was fast at about 1.5-2 MB/sec.

Bottom Line

The Olympus SP-350 is a very good camera at an attractive price. It uses expensive xD memory, but aside from that is a good performer. It has excellent feature set and performance. I highly recommend it if you need an 8-Megapixel camera with manual control and an external flash hot shoe.

Recommended
Yes

Product Rating
(Excellent)

This review is also available at Epinions.com: Olumpus SP-350 8-Megapixel Digital Camera Review on Epinions.com

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