Compare Prices : Olympus SP-550 UltraZoom - Expert Reviews

Review summary: The Olympus SP-550UZ would be a great travel camera, or a second camera with a wide focal range, at a competitive price.

Pros: Solid styling ; easily replaceable AA-sized batteries ; 18x optical zoom that begins at 28mm ; optical image stabilization ; full manual mode ; fast burst rate of 15fps but at 1.2 megapixels

Cons: No manual zoom and hotshoe adapter ; plastic tripod receptacle ; half-pressing the shutter doesn't bring you out of the menus directly into shooting mode ; continuous shooting limited to three frames ; unusable pictures at ISO 3,200 and ISO 5,000

Review summary: Want a big zoom and lots of manual control without the DSLR learning curve? We've got your camera.

Pros: Very good to excellent image quality.18X optical zoom.Effective CCD stabilization.Excellent metering.RAW format.Complete range of capture modes.Good viewfinder and monitor.Compact and light.

Cons: Slight distortion at both ends of the focal length range.Slight chromatic aberration.Some hesitancy in the autofocus under low light.

Review summary: Olympus describes as shortly as being far and wide, the world's most powerful ultra zoom, which is quite true (100x total zoom capability). This camera comes with Dual Image Stabilization (Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization keeps your shot steady by ...