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Olympus SP-570UZ

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By Lori Grunin
Nov 12, 2008

Once you mention the Olympus SP-570UZ's 20x zoom lens, the rest of the camera's feature set seems almost superfluous; with an atypically wide-angle lens for any class of single-body cameras plus an exceptionally long telephoto view, the lens is the raison d'être for the camera. But this top-of-the-line model for Olympus' megazooms has more going for it than just a big lens.

Editors' note:

This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia.

Design

At 118.5 x 87.5 x 84mm and weighing 445g, the 10-megapixel SP-570UZ takes up more space than the SP-560UZ. In fact, it's almost as big as Olympus' E-420 dSLR. (Much of the design hearkens back to the days before Olympus shortened "Ultra Zoom" to "UZ.") But all that room allows it to have a great, comfortable feeling grip, hot shoe, and a thumbwheel on the top for adjusting shutter speed, aperture, and so on. The 2.7-inch LCD is also a minor step up from the SP-560UZ's 2.5-inch display. The large grip accommodates four AA batteries that power the camera.

The menu navigation is typical Olympus, which means logically arranged with large, easy-to-read text and explanatory text which you pull up with the press of a button. The help text is small and looks crammed into the left half of the screen, as if that aspect of the firmware were copied directly from another camera with a smaller display. As is becoming common on dSLRs, you can press a button that conjures a grid of the camera's current settings and change them directly via the thumbwheel which we really like. However, Olympus forgoes a zoom switch in favor of a servoelectronic manual zoom ring on the lens. Unfortunately, the ring isn't nearly as responsive as it should be, and we found it inaccurate and hard to use, making for a frustrating shooting experience.



Tags: DSLR, Camera, LCD, firmware, Menu Navigation
 
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