Olympus 560UZ

Reviewed January 2008

Image Quality

The overall quality of photos taken with the Olympus SP-560UZ was good. Outdoor shots in cloudy and sunny weather using the automatic setting were sharp, had good color fidelity and had a minmum of noise.

The 560UZ is designed to allow a shutterbug to get the best shot possible in a variety conditions with a minimum of fuss. That's not to say a shooter who wants to fuss with a shot can do so with the camera's manual controls. With more than 20 scene modes, Olympus has covered a lot of bases. However, I found myself creating my own settings for a shot because I was unhappy with what the camera chose for me. For example, at a children's birthday party, I tried using sport mode because I expected a bunch of seven-year-olds to be in constant motion. What I ended up with was lots of blurred pictures. I had better luck with the camera's burst modes. Although blurring was still a challenge indoors, outdoor sequences were frozen in motion.

By trying to cover a wide variety of situations, the camera can be befuddling. By the time a shooter matches a situation with a camera setting, the moment that prompted the shot in the first place can be gone. While that may not affect the physical attributes of a shot, it can affect the subjective ones by not allowing you to capture what you wnat when you want it.

If you like to get close up and personal with your subjects, you'll really enjoy the two macro offerings of this camera. Closing in to less than four inches from a target can produce some real eye-opening images.

Another joy of this camera is its monster zoom. It lets you take quality close-ups without having to intrude on your subject's space.