The Stylus
790SW is designed to take pictures with a minimum of fuss. That's probably
the reason it has so many "pre-sets" or scene modes. These modes
automatically choose settings designed to work in a number of photographic
situations. If a camera permits me to fuss with settings like exposure,
white balance, ISO and shutter speed, my inclination is to fuss with them
rather than use the pre-sets because they give me better control over
the shot. But I found the pre-sets in this Olympic model to be savvy and
capable, as the sunset shot below illustrates.
Aperture: f3.5 Shutter Speed: 1/250 ISO: 80
Aperture: f5 Shutter Speed: 1/250 ISO: 160
Outdoor photos
captured with this Olympus model were sharp and had good color fidelity.
Although its handling of dynamic range in shots--the shift between dark
and light areas--wasn't perfect in every frame captured even with its
shadow adjustment features turned on, more often than not, it produced
photos worth printing when shooting in situations that were challenging
to a digital camera's contrast rendering capabilities.
At times, the DSC's ability
to handle difficult lighting situations surprised. On one occasion, I
flipped it into auto mode and shot a stain glass window in my house. I
had taken that shot previously with a DSLR and it took me seven or so
shots to get one true to subject. The Olympus did it in one shot.
Aperture: f3.5 Shutter Speed: 1/80 ISO: 80
Although the camera's 38-114mm
equivalent 3x optical zoom felt confining--not wide enough for some shots,
couldn't get close enough for others--shots throughout its zoom range were
sharp without any noticeable aberrations.
Focal Length: 7mm (38mm equivalent)
Focal Length: 20mm (114mm equivalent)
Aperture: f5 Shutter Speed: 1/80 ISO: 1600
Indoors,
the unit's performance was adequate. Without a flash, subjects tended
to be softly focused. Nevertheless, the snapper could click some dynamic
shots under a roof.
Photos taken with the flash
seem best when shot at the wide and telephoto ends of the zoom. Still,
the flash photos shot with the camera lacked the natural feel of its outdoor
shots, a condition common to many point-and-shoot DSCs.
Aperture: f6.3 Shutter Speed: 1/30 ISO: 100
Overall, the photo quality of images captured
with the 790SW was a cut above the average point-and-shoot camera.
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Image Quality
