At the heart of the 790SW is Olympus's
TruePic III processor. Startup time is relatively fast at 1.6 seconds, but
time between shots at SHQ (3072 x 2304) resolution won't win any speed records
at ±3.5 seconds. Continuous shooting speeds are also pedestrian in
high quality modes--about a shot a second--but improve if you're satisfied
with three megapixel--3.5 frames a second--or 1.9MP snaps (11 fps).
The unit has a 1/2.33-inch CCD sensor
that captures images in nine sizes from 3072 x 2304 pixels to 640 x 480
pixels (see specifications section) at five quality levels: SHQ, HQ, SQ1,
SQ2 and 16:9. A series of shots using the same test subject and camera settings
(see table) shows the compression ratio for highest quality images (SHQ)
to be around 2.8:1. At HQ, SQ1 and 16:9 qualities, ratios ranged from 5.9:1
to 6.1:1 and at SQ2, the spread was 2.8:1 to 4.7:1.
Olympus Stylus 790SW File
Compression
Image Size (pixels)
Quality
MP
File Size (MP)
Ratio/1
3072 x 2304
SHQ
7.08
2.54
2.8
3072 x 2304
HQ
7.08
1.16
6.1
2560 x 1920
SQ1
4.92
0.823
6.0
2304 x 1728
SQ1
3.98
0.66
6.0
2048 x 1536
SQ1
3.15
0.522
6.0
1600 x 1200
SQ2
1.92
0.412
4.7
1280 x 960
SQ2
1.23
0.261
4.7
1024 x 768
SQ2
0.79
0.169
4.7
640 x 480
SQ2
0.31
0.108
2.8
1920 x 1080
16:09
2.07
0.352
5.9
Movies can be shot in three sizes: 640 x 480
(SHQ), 320 x 240 (HQ) and 160 x 120 (SQ). They can display on a TV with
a cable included with the camera.
In addition to an auto mode, light sensitivity (ISO) can be chosen manually.
ISO settings range from 80-1600 (see specifications section).
The unit has 6.7-20.1mm
3x optical zoom (38-114mm equivalent). The lens doesn't extend from the
unit at the zoom's maximum focal length so the camera keeps its compact
appearance when the zoom is used. I found the zoom range restrictive. At
its widest setting, I was constantly backpedaling to get the shot I wanted,
and in telephoto, I had get up close and personal to subjects before they
filled a frame the way I wanted it filled. The DSC also has a 5x digital
zoom and a "fine zoom" mode. Fine zoom, a kind of lossless digital
zoom, boosts the optical zoom's magnification to 14x by using image cropping,
which is similar to what's done when you crop an image in a photo editing
program.
Aperture settings for the unit's lens range from f3.5-f5.0. It consists
of 10 lenses, three aspherical, in eight groups. Shutter speeds span four
seconds to 1/1000 second. The self-timer has a 12 second delay and takes
one shot.
For close-up work, the camera has three macro modes. In Macro mode, focusing
range is from nine inches in wide mode to 11.8 inches in telephoto mode.
In Super Macro mode, you can close in to 2.8 inches from your subject.
There's also an S-macro mode, which uses the unit's built-in LED to illuminate
a subject. It works best between 2.8 to 7.9 inches. The 790SW's zoom and
flash cannot be used in Super and S-macro modes. Also, ISO is locked in
auto in S-macro.
Two metering and three focusing modes are offered by the 790SW.
In ESP metering mode, the camera takes light readings from the center
of a shot and the area surrounding the center separately and tries to
balance the exposure. That method can be flawed when a subject is being
shot against a bright background. So the unit also has a spot metering
mode that exposes a frame based on a light reading only at the center
of the shot. There are other ways to tinker with the exposure, too, such
as exposure compensation or shadow adjustment (see interface section).
As is becoming de rigueur in the digital camera
world these days, the camera has face detection focusing--it searches for
faces in a frame and automatically focuses on them. This doesn't always
work because the algorithm behind it is less than perfect. A face is a face
is a face to the human eye, but to an algorithm a face may be face or it
could be a rose, depending on the data points it's receiving. Also, face-detection
doesn't work in 16:9 image quality. {insert photo oly-790sw-chr-focus.jpg}
Additional focusing modes in
the camera include iESP and Spot. With iESP, the camera susses out what
it should focus on and locks on to that subject--wherever that subject
might be in the shot. In Spot mode, the unit will focus on a subject within
a focusing bracket that appears on the LCD. The bracket is always at the
center of the LCD.
Unlike many point-and-shoot cameras, this Olympus model has a rechargeable
Li-ion battery. On my first charge, I took about 75 photos in 15 days.
I didn't run out of power again before I returned the unit to Olympus.
The 790SW has 14.7MB of internal memory and supports external storage
on xD cards, which must be purchased separately. When there's a card in
the camera, pictures aren't recorded to the internal memory. Photos stored
in that memory, though, can be copied to a card using the unit's backup
function.
One drawback to being locked into xD media is that the camera can't take
advantage of cutting edge developments like the Eye-Fi card. That SD card
incorporates wireless technology into the media so photos can be transferred
from the camera to a computer or to the Internet without fussing with
wires or removing the card from the bytesnapper.
The number of photos that can be stored in the unit varies depending
on the quality setting and whether a sound memo is attached to the image
file. With image quality set at SHQ, the unit's internal memory can hold
four shots, with or without sound. In HQ mode, internal memory can store
eight images, with or without sound; in SQ1, from 12-18 images with sound
and from 12-19 pics without sound; in SQ2, 22-75 with sound, 23-89 without
sound; and in 16:9, 26 with sound, 28 without.
Those numbers rise substantially with the use of a 1GB external card.
In SHQ mode, the card can hold 292 snaps with sound, 294 without sound;
in HQ, 576 with sound, 586 without; in SQ1, 820-1254 with sound, 841-1305
without; in SQ2, 1487-4920 with sound, 1560-5815 without; and in 16:9,
1827 with sound, 1938 without.
Although the camera can shoot video, any kind of quality video taxes
the storage capacity of the unit. Only eight seconds of SHQ video, which
is suitable for display on a TV, for instance, can be captured with the
unit's internal memory; 10 seconds with a 1GB card. Lower quality video,
as might be expected, extends the run times of video shot with the unit.
HQ videos max out at 38 seconds with internal memory and 29 minutes with
a 1GB card; SQ video tops out at 94 seconds with internal memory and 29
minutes with a 1GB card.
When lighting conditions demand it, shots
can be illuminated with the unit’s fixed flash located at the front
of the camera. With the zoom in wide mode, the range for the flash is
7.92 inches to 12.5 feet; in telephoto mode, its range is two feet to
8.5 feet. Light sensitivity is set to ISO 800 when the flash is in play.
Recycle time for the flash is around six seconds.
Standards supported by the 790SW are EXIF 2.2, DPOF, Print Image Matching,
PictBridge, NTSC and PAL.
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