Nikon Coolpix P80 vs. Olympus SP-570UZIn the world of megazoom shooters, focal length rules. The more powerful the zoom, the longer its reach. For now, the Olympus SP-570UZ dominates the arena with its 20x zoom. But Nikon is snapping at its heels with its Coolpix P80, which wields an 18x zoom lens and small footprint to boot. We threw these two 10.1-megapixel zoom maestros into the ring and watched them pit their design, features, performance and image quality against each other. May the best camera win!
DesignThe Nikon's Coolpix P80 may be smaller, but we cannot fault Olympus for making the SP-570UZ more robust. After all, it houses a 20x optical zoom lens. Both shooters have a sturdy rubberized grip, but for some of us who have big hands, the SP-570UZ fits better.The P80's button interface looks cleaner with an uncluttered layout, while the SP-570UZ's tends to be a little bit messy and we had some difficulty looking for certain functions. We measured the physical extension of both lenses when the zoom was maxed out. Although the SP-570UZ has a 20x zoom, it looked pretty close in length to the P80 when the lens was fully extended at 18x. Longer reach but shorter lens? Olympus got the formula right. Overall winner: Tie FeaturesSince the P80 has only an 18x zoom, it would be unfair to pit its zoom range against the 20x SP-570UZ. But what sets them apart is the wide-angle lens. For the Nikon, it captures a 27mm view, while the Olympus is looking at more things with a 26mm lens. 1mm may not sound much, but in dire situations it can come in handy.Both shooters sport their own image stabilizer system, with the P80 utilizing Nikon's optical Vibration Reduction (VR) and the SP-570UZ running a sensor-shift operation to minimize blur caused by handshake. Although it sounds like a tie, we concluded that Nikon's VR worked slightly better in our Lab tests. The Olympus has a manual focusing mode, while the Nikon relies entirely on autofocus. Having an alternative option is better, but Olympus made it quite confusing to maneuver the focus and the controls were not intuitive. In the end, we gave up and flipped the switch back to Auto. Advanced photographers who use a dSLR will be familiar with the zoom ring around the SP-570UZ. Unlike the P80 which uses a rocker around the shutter button to zoom, the SP-570UZ offers more precise zoom control by turning the ring. While manual focusing function can be mapped to the ring, we preferred using it as it was. You can fix an external hotshoe strobe on the SP-570UZ (which already has a built-in flash), which gives this shooter more flexibility when taking shots in low light. For the P80, shutterbugs have to contend themselves with the built-in flash. Expansion slot-wise, the P80 uses the more common SD/SDHC/MMC flash memory, while the SP-570UZ accepts only xD-Picture Card. As we all know, SD memory media has higher capacities and is more affordable. Also, it is compatible with a lot of gadgets as well. Overall winner: SP-570UZ |
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