Olympus SP-350

Reviewed October 2005

Test Photos

STILL LIFE PHOTO

This subject is photographed in a room that has a mix of fluorescent and incandescent light, but which is not brightly lit. The camera's flash is used to add fill light. The backdrop is 1.95 m (6.5 ft) from the camera.

The photos we obtained using the default settings of the SP-350, and with the sensitivity set to 50 ISO to minimize noise, turned out to be a touch too dark. Therefore the sensitivity was set to Auto, which lets the camera adjust the CCD sensitivity as needed — in this case up to 100 ISO — to maximize the effect of the flash.

This increase in sensitivity had no impact on the Auto white balance, and the image captured exhibits less than perfect colours under this mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting. We can also note that this wide angle shot is not very sharp.

ZOOM PHOTO

Now we zoom in on a specific area. The intent is to test the sharpness of the image at the zoom's maximum setting. The camera remains at the same distance as with the preceding photo.

As with the wide angle shot shown above, the zoom shot was captured using both JPEG (SHQ) and RAW formats. And just like the photo presented above the JPEG image turned out yellow-tinged. While correction is possible with a JPEG image, it is much easier and precise if the correction is applied to the RAW file.

Using Olympus Master, supplied with the camera, the colour balance was adjusted and the resulting image re-saved in the TIFF format.

MACRO PHOTO

Without using the macro mode, the SP-350 is able to focus on a subject that is 20 cm (8 inches) from the front of the lens when it is set to the widest angle, and 30 cm (1 ft) at the maximum telephoto setting.

While the SP-350 is equipped with 2 Macro modes, a Standard Macro mode and a Super Macro mode, the Standard Macro offers the same focus distances as the normal focus mode, but optimizes the AF speed in the Macro range.

BUILDING PHOTO

This image is our outdoor test. The architecture of the building, in particular the angled girders, immediately show the presence of jaggies. The shadowed entrance can also often reveal the quality of the exposure.

Although the ESP metering of the SP-350 usually yields good exposures, in this case the combination of a white, glowing sky, and the reflection of the sun's light on the beams of the canopy conspire to make the meter slightly overexpose the latter.

Seen at 100% scale on a monitor, this wide angle shot is less sharp than what the camera yields as soon as the zoom is beyond the widest angle.

ZOOM PHOTO

Zooming in on the entrance of the building, the shadowed entrance takes on a greater importance for the metering and can cause an overexposure of sections that are directly lit.

Zoomed in the exposure is correct, and although the foreground is close to overexposure, some detail remains visible. The metering is clearly influenced by the darker entrance, and the exposures captures an excellent level of detail in that area, as even with a 3X zoom lens, the little sign (a part is missing) on the front door is legible.

Also worth noting, just as the wide angle shot showed no barrel distortion, the zoom shot shows no pincushion distortion.

NIGHT PHOTO

Since this camera is capable of long exposures, a photo taken at night is included here.

The SP-350 offers a Night Scene mode that allows setting not only the sensitivity, but also allows setting the white balance. However it is limited to a maximum exposure time of 4 seconds, and is therefore best suited to very brightly-lit night scenes if a low sensitivity such as 50 ISO is going to be used to control noise.

The Manual mode, on the other hand, is very flexible and offers a maximum timed exposure of 15 seconds.

Regardless, with this subject a 15 second exposure time and an aperture of f4.5 are sufficient to capture a bright and excellent image. Noise reduction, using a dark frame process*, is applied automatically (once enabled in the menu) and the result is an interesting image that exhibits no serious loss of detail.