Five and a half years ago, long before Panasonic launched the FZ series, before Canon, Kodak, Minolta - or anyone else for that matter - had joined the 'big zoom' party there was the Olympus C-2100UZ. With its image-stabilized 10x zoom, electronic viewfinder and SLR-styling the C-2100UZ was a big success when it launched mid-2000 (the only alternatives at the time being Sony floppy disk cameras with camcorder lenses).
Fast forward to 2006. The super zoom market has got a lot busier and Olympus has lost its early lead, failing to offer a serious alternative to popular models like the Canon S2IS or the Panasonic FZ20, despite fairly regular upgrades to the compact C7XX series of ultra zoom cameras. The biggest problem is the lack of image stabilization, something that in today's market means 'budget' - and that's where the new, lower-priced (but still IS-free) SP-500UZ comes in.
The six megapixel SP-500UZ - announced last August - offers a 10x zoom, full manual control, RAW capture and a wealth of photographic and digital features. With a feature list as long as your arm, lots of beginner-friendly scene modes, a predictive AF function, which predicts the location of a moving subject at the moment the shutter closes, a nice 2.5-inch screen and a 3cm macro mode, the SP-500UZ certainly seems to offer an excellent 'bang for your buck', but is it good enough to compete in such a crowded area of the market? Lets find out, starting with a quick run-down of the key selling points:
6.0 million pixels
10x zoom lens (38-380mm equiv) F2.8-3.7, plus 5x digital zoom
Electronic viewfinder with 201,600 pixels
2.5” LCD
Auto, Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and manual exposure
21 scene modes
Focusing options: iESP auto focus and Spot incl. option for selectable AF area with 143 points, plus Predictive AF for back or forward moving subjects
Super Macro mode up to 3cm
Histogram function in shooting mode and playback
Recording in JPEG or RAW format
10MB internal memory plus xD-Picture Card slot
TruePic TURBO image processor
Optional macro, tele and wide lens converters can be attached
Fast forward to 2006. The super zoom market has got a lot busier and Olympus has lost its early lead, failing to offer a serious alternative to popular models like the Canon S2IS or the Panasonic FZ20, despite fairly regular upgrades to the compact C7XX series of ultra zoom cameras. The biggest problem is the lack of image stabilization, something that in today's market means 'budget' - and that's where the new, lower-priced (but still IS-free) SP-500UZ comes in.
The six megapixel SP-500UZ - announced last August - offers a 10x zoom, full manual control, RAW capture and a wealth of photographic and digital features. With a feature list as long as your arm, lots of beginner-friendly scene modes, a predictive AF function, which predicts the location of a moving subject at the moment the shutter closes, a nice 2.5-inch screen and a 3cm macro mode, the SP-500UZ certainly seems to offer an excellent 'bang for your buck', but is it good enough to compete in such a crowded area of the market? Lets find out, starting with a quick run-down of the key selling points:
6.0 million pixels
10x zoom lens (38-380mm equiv) F2.8-3.7, plus 5x digital zoom
Electronic viewfinder with 201,600 pixels
2.5” LCD
Auto, Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and manual exposure
21 scene modes
Focusing options: iESP auto focus and Spot incl. option for selectable AF area with 143 points, plus Predictive AF for back or forward moving subjects
Super Macro mode up to 3cm
Histogram function in shooting mode and playback
Recording in JPEG or RAW format
10MB internal memory plus xD-Picture Card slot
TruePic TURBO image processor
Optional macro, tele and wide lens converters can be attached
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