Olympus SP-570 Ultra Zoom - Expert Reviews

Review summary: Olympus' UltraZoom series of digital cameras are well known for their powerful zoom lenses, but the Olympus SP-570 UZ takes things up a notch with a whopping new 20x optical zoom lens boasting an equivalent focal length starting at a truly wide 26mm ...

Pros: Beautiful, compact form factor ; Hot shoe for external flash ; Wireless flash support ; Helpful Guide mode ; 20x, wide-angle optical zoom ; 100x zoom range with usable digital zoom ; Good Standard Macro mode ; Good sharpness across the frame ; ...

Cons: Unresponsive zoom ring ; Confusing menu 'gotchas ; Strong geometric distortion at both wide and telephoto ; High chromatic aberration at both wide angle and telephoto ; Strong blurring and loss of detail at ISO 800 and up ; Noticeable chroma noise ...

Verdict: The SP570's ISO sensitivity ranges from 50 to 6400 equivalent controlled automatically or manually - a fairly impressive range, but it remains to be seen what image noise at ISO 6400 from a small ten megapixel imager is like. The Olympus 570UZ also ...

Review summary: The SP-570 is the best-looking long zoom digital camera Olympus has produced, finally available in a black body that's compact, yet easily handled. The Olympus SP-570 UZ's 2.7-inch LCD screen is complemented by a decent electronic viewfinder, and the ...

Review summary: If you're not quite ready for a D-SLR but want more than a point-and-shoot camera can offer, the $500 10-megapixel Olympus SP-570 UZ superzoom provides a respectable middle ground. This camera packs an easy-to-adjust 20X zoom lens, Perfect Shot ...

Pros: Easily adjustable 20X zoom lens. Perfect Shot Preview. Shadow adjustment.

Cons: Image quality is inconsistent. Limited video. Irksome lens-focusing sound.

Verdict: Even though its image quality isn't quite as consistent as that of competing models, this superzoom boasts plenty of useful features that make it worth considering.