Olympus 1030 SW review
InsuredDisaster
Registered Users Posts: 1,132 Major grins
My previous experience with the Olympus waterproof cameras was in the form of the very disappointing Olympus 770SW. Above ISO 400, it was unusable, it was slow, poor focusing, and it seemed like the battery life was so limited, using it was like a game of Russian roulette. It might have enough juice or it might die. It finally died when I dropped it in waist deep water where it sat for about 15 minutes before I could locate it and retrieve it. (It was in a swimming pool.) It was completely soaked.
It was with some reluctance that I decided to spring for the latest model, the Olympus 1030SW. Two water activities were upcoming (one is over now) and I wanted to be able to photograph everything. Was this ability worth $400 to me? Yes, in part. Additionally, I was missing the benefits of having a very small PS camera when my hulkingly huge DSLRs stand out too much. And there are times when the look of “idiot tourist” is better than “professional newphotographer” Its bad when Chinese people come up to me and ask ME what is going on.
I purchased the camera in silver and remembering the short battery life of the 770, I also bought an extra battery. I stuck with my older 1gig Olympus memory card. FYI, there are certain benefits from using Olympus branded cards (see below). I also received an extra lanyard from the vendor, which turned out handy. The vendor told me that the colored finishes scratch very easily, or rather, he showed me. Since we had a bit of a language gap, he simply took a key and keyed the demo camera, which had a black finish. Now, the demo could have had a cheap finish, but it did make a big scratch.
Firstly, I have to say, I do not as a rule use point and shoots. I have used a D70 and now the D300, so please don’t put too much weight if I complain about things that are true about any point and shoot camera.
THE MODES
This camera gives you a control wheel on the back where you can select auto, “P” mode, anti shake mode, Scene Select, Guide mode, Movie mode, and two review options.
The Antishake is digital, and I’m not entirely sure what all goes on inside the camera when you select it, but for example, you can not manually select the ISO any more(which is often bumped up. However, it might be a valuable option, as the camera in P mode tends to use really low shutter speeds, resulting in blurry photos.
Scene mode allows you to select a scene (duh). There are a ton of scenes in the camera (24 I think). There are a couple of useful modes. One is the “shoot and the select” mode where you take a dozen pictures rapidly, than select the ones that you want to DELETE! It’s a bit weird and counter-intuitive. More than once, I selected the ones I wanted to keep and then deleted them instead.
The guide mode is similar to scene mode except that the camera presents you “If/then” menus. If you want a large print, then the camera will automatically select the best size and compression, and then prevent you from changing anything else. Want to blur the background? The camera will zoom in, and then prevent you from zooming back out. Personally, I hate this mode.
The camera has a macro mode, which is useful at times, say, if you’ve got a roach you want to shoot after it died on your floor. However, the camera, and the 770SW, has a tendency to pass through proper focus and then lock out of focus. There is no way to manually focus the camera. Too bad, sometimes, the macro mode simply can’t be used due to poor focus.
Additionally, the camera has a review mode, and a review button. I’d chuck the review mode on the wheel, and the stupid guide mode, increase the force required to move the wheel, and space the modes out a bit more on the wheel so as to prevent you from bumping the mode around.
Battery life is still relatively limited with this camera. I used the autopower off feature which gave me faster restart times compared to actually shutting the camera down. I also used flash about 30% of the time. That being said, I went through one battery, and was fairly close to using up the second one in just 250 photos. I'd recommend lots of extra batteries, and try to minimize review times, especially if you are going to be out in the boonies with this camera. One downside of having no optical viewfinder. The good news is, compared to my older 770, the low battery warning is in fact, a warning, and not telling you that you have 10 seconds to kiss your battery goodbye. I'd say the warning indicator flashed for 30 minutes before the battery finally died.
ISO quality is actually surprisingly usuable, especially compared to the 770. 1600 is very noisy, but lower ISO’s return much better values. I think this camera really addresses one of my biggest complaints of the 770.
Probably a problem with any PS is the very long flash recycle times. In order to get the water to stand out, I used the flash. This meant the camera was about limited to one shot every few seconds. Not so great to go back later and grab one of those "peak action shots" So again, if you need flash cababilities, look to a camera with a flash hot shoe.
The camera makes a lot of claims as to how robust it is. You can drop it, you can step on it, you can set it on fire. (Ok, maybe not) But I’ve only banged it around and soaked it. So far it has done pretty well.
Overall, if you want a great PS, skip this camera. There are probably better ones out there for the price, which is pretty costly. HOWEVER, if you do want a waterproof camera that says it can be banged around, then this is probably the camera to get. Just keep your warranty handy. It may flood.
ISO 1600 Pretty bad compared to upper range DSLRs', but actually, i think its not to bad compared to what I remember the 770 being like.
Lower ISO's return decent results. This camera doesn't give you the option to select your lowest shutter speed before ISO ramps up, but it does seem to do pretty well if you leave the camera on ISO auto.
Overall, I'm sure there are better land cameras out there for $400 (coming very close to entry level DLSR's). But if you want an amphibious camera, this does appear to be a great camera.
It was with some reluctance that I decided to spring for the latest model, the Olympus 1030SW. Two water activities were upcoming (one is over now) and I wanted to be able to photograph everything. Was this ability worth $400 to me? Yes, in part. Additionally, I was missing the benefits of having a very small PS camera when my hulkingly huge DSLRs stand out too much. And there are times when the look of “idiot tourist” is better than “professional newphotographer” Its bad when Chinese people come up to me and ask ME what is going on.
I purchased the camera in silver and remembering the short battery life of the 770, I also bought an extra battery. I stuck with my older 1gig Olympus memory card. FYI, there are certain benefits from using Olympus branded cards (see below). I also received an extra lanyard from the vendor, which turned out handy. The vendor told me that the colored finishes scratch very easily, or rather, he showed me. Since we had a bit of a language gap, he simply took a key and keyed the demo camera, which had a black finish. Now, the demo could have had a cheap finish, but it did make a big scratch.
Firstly, I have to say, I do not as a rule use point and shoots. I have used a D70 and now the D300, so please don’t put too much weight if I complain about things that are true about any point and shoot camera.
THE MODES
This camera gives you a control wheel on the back where you can select auto, “P” mode, anti shake mode, Scene Select, Guide mode, Movie mode, and two review options.
The Antishake is digital, and I’m not entirely sure what all goes on inside the camera when you select it, but for example, you can not manually select the ISO any more(which is often bumped up. However, it might be a valuable option, as the camera in P mode tends to use really low shutter speeds, resulting in blurry photos.
Scene mode allows you to select a scene (duh). There are a ton of scenes in the camera (24 I think). There are a couple of useful modes. One is the “shoot and the select” mode where you take a dozen pictures rapidly, than select the ones that you want to DELETE! It’s a bit weird and counter-intuitive. More than once, I selected the ones I wanted to keep and then deleted them instead.
The guide mode is similar to scene mode except that the camera presents you “If/then” menus. If you want a large print, then the camera will automatically select the best size and compression, and then prevent you from changing anything else. Want to blur the background? The camera will zoom in, and then prevent you from zooming back out. Personally, I hate this mode.
The camera has a macro mode, which is useful at times, say, if you’ve got a roach you want to shoot after it died on your floor. However, the camera, and the 770SW, has a tendency to pass through proper focus and then lock out of focus. There is no way to manually focus the camera. Too bad, sometimes, the macro mode simply can’t be used due to poor focus.
Additionally, the camera has a review mode, and a review button. I’d chuck the review mode on the wheel, and the stupid guide mode, increase the force required to move the wheel, and space the modes out a bit more on the wheel so as to prevent you from bumping the mode around.
Battery life is still relatively limited with this camera. I used the autopower off feature which gave me faster restart times compared to actually shutting the camera down. I also used flash about 30% of the time. That being said, I went through one battery, and was fairly close to using up the second one in just 250 photos. I'd recommend lots of extra batteries, and try to minimize review times, especially if you are going to be out in the boonies with this camera. One downside of having no optical viewfinder. The good news is, compared to my older 770, the low battery warning is in fact, a warning, and not telling you that you have 10 seconds to kiss your battery goodbye. I'd say the warning indicator flashed for 30 minutes before the battery finally died.
ISO quality is actually surprisingly usuable, especially compared to the 770. 1600 is very noisy, but lower ISO’s return much better values. I think this camera really addresses one of my biggest complaints of the 770.
Probably a problem with any PS is the very long flash recycle times. In order to get the water to stand out, I used the flash. This meant the camera was about limited to one shot every few seconds. Not so great to go back later and grab one of those "peak action shots" So again, if you need flash cababilities, look to a camera with a flash hot shoe.
The camera makes a lot of claims as to how robust it is. You can drop it, you can step on it, you can set it on fire. (Ok, maybe not) But I’ve only banged it around and soaked it. So far it has done pretty well.
Overall, if you want a great PS, skip this camera. There are probably better ones out there for the price, which is pretty costly. HOWEVER, if you do want a waterproof camera that says it can be banged around, then this is probably the camera to get. Just keep your warranty handy. It may flood.
ISO 1600 Pretty bad compared to upper range DSLRs', but actually, i think its not to bad compared to what I remember the 770 being like.
Lower ISO's return decent results. This camera doesn't give you the option to select your lowest shutter speed before ISO ramps up, but it does seem to do pretty well if you leave the camera on ISO auto.
Overall, I'm sure there are better land cameras out there for $400 (coming very close to entry level DLSR's). But if you want an amphibious camera, this does appear to be a great camera.
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Comments
Thanks for a great review.
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I bought the model between the 1030 and the 770 for my wife after she dropped her Nikon PS dcam. I purposely did not choose the 1030sw because I felt it was too many pixels on a small imager. So far the 850sw has shown itself to be an excellent dcam for a PS. I'll try to put up some more detailed comments and some pics in another thread.
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