Olympus zooms ahead with 20x optical lens in a compact camera

Reuben Lee | Jan 22, 2008

Have cameras gone the way of the telescope? Seems like. Just when you got tired of the megapixels rivalry, camera vendors now seem to be shooting for higher zoom numbers. First out with its announcement is Olympus which claims boasting rights to the world's first 20x optical zoom (26-520mm) digital compact camera.

Successor to the SP-560UZ, the SP-570UZ--under the company's Ultra Zoom series--comes one week before PMA kicks off in Las Vegas. Could this pre-empt a possible trend at this year's digital imaging tradeshow? After all, Panasonic and Fujifilm already put out 18x zoom lens as of last year (Lumix DMC-FZ18 and FinePix S8000fd, respectively).

To accommodate the super telephoto lens in the SP-570UZ, the Japanese company has provided several support features. There's a manual zoom ring for better zoom control, plus CCD-shift and high ISO (up to ISO 6400) to reduce the inevitable handshake blur from handling such a long zoom.

The 10-megapixel SP-570UZ is due out in Singapore as early as February, with Asia availability details still in the pipeline.

Here's some trivia. Olympus' first Ultra Zoom shooter, the C-700UZ, was unveiled in 2001, impressively squeezing a 10x optical zoom lens into a relatively compact camera.

Check out the other new models that Olympus has lined up for 2008 Q1.

Filed under: Digital Cameras
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