Olympus SP-700

Reviewed March 2006

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.

With the sensitivity set to 64 ISO, the SP-700 yields an exposure that is a bit too dark, and exposure compensation is not an option since it has no effect with flash photos. The alternative is to set the sensitivity to Auto and allow the camera to increase the ISO as necessary, which in this case means an increase to 125 ISO, so as to obtain a bright image.

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.

At the maximum telephoto, there is only a small difference in the aperture available to the camera — f3.3 versus f4 — and the Auto sensitivity remains at 125 ISO, allowing the camera to produce a bright image with excellent colours.

Although the compression is quite strong, sharpness is excellent, and the 6-megapixel image shows a lot of detail, including the texture of the rust coloured felt and the printing pattern of the old photographic paper envelope.

MACRO PHOTO

Like a number of other Olympus cameras, the SP-700 has both a standard Macro mode that allows the use of the zoom, and a Super Macro mode that locks the zoom at the wide angle.

Set to the standard Macro mode, the camera is able to focus on a subject that is 10 cm (4 in.) away from the front of the lens when the zoom is at the widest angle and 50 cm (20 in.) when the zoom is at the maximum telephoto. The wide angle yields a field of view of 10 cm (4 in.), while the telephoto captures approximately 14 cm (5.46 in.).

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.

Benefiting from perfect light — the sun bathing the subject directly — the metering yields an excellent exposure.

The wide angle image does not reveal any barrel distortion, or any chromatic aberration. Sharpness, on the other hand, is a bit lower than with telephoto shots.

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.

At the telephoto end, the SP-700 captures a perfectly exposed image as well.

A slight amount of pincushion distortion can be seen, curving the vertical image elements aligned on the edges of the frame slightly inwards. However, there is no trace of any chromatic aberration.

NIGHT PHOTO

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

The SP-700 is a fully automatic camera, selecting both the shutter speed and aperture in all capture modes, so to capture this image the Night Scene mode is used. The mode allows capturing images with a maximum exposure time of 4 seconds, and allows control over the sensitivity and white balance.

An exposure time of 4 seconds, at 64 ISO to minimize noise, yields an image that is sufficiently bright.

A dark frame noise reduction system is automatically applied to all long exposures, doubling the time required to take the image.

As is often the cases, the process tends to reduce the overall sharpness of the image, an effect that is particularly noticeable when the image is seen at 100% scale on a monitor, but which is not usually noticeable once the photo is printed.