By Leonard Goh
28/04/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,42588285p,00.htm

The 10.1-megapixel Olympus Mju 1010 was first seen at PMA earlier this year, and since its features was touted by the Japanese firm as the "ultimate in modern compact photography", we couldn't wait to see how this shooter would hold up against the other powerful point-and-shoots in the mid-range digicam market. We weren't disappointed with the 7x optical zoom in a stylish, compact form. Other features like face detection and image stabilization worked well, but we wished this compact would keep up with the trend and give us a wide-angle lens and HD video recording.

The Mju 1010 has a tougher sibling--the Mju 1030--which is one of the hardiest cameras we've come across. So if you are the sporty kind, the Mju 1030 is a good alternative.

Design

Encased in a slim, arc-shaped metallic casing, the Mju 1010 was sturdy to hold. But what really struck us was the translucent ring around the Power button that lit a cool blue when the camera was turned on. While fiddling with the controls, we realized the buttons would light up when pressed, too. This was especially useful when we were shooting in a dimly-lit surrounding.

The ridged wheel to switch between modes was easy to turn and gave sufficient resistance so we won't accidentally turn it to another mode. The button layout was self-explanatory with the functions printed on the button itself.

The cover for the USB/ AV/ DC-in port is held by a strip of rubber, which we felt could break easily over repeated use. We would have preferred a hinge instead.

The flash is positioned toward the left edge of the camera and we had the tendency to cover it with our finger while shooting. While this may look like a design flaw, we have to understand that a large lens barrel (accommodating a 7x optical zoom lens) already takes up much of the space on the front.

Features

The Mju 1010 boast a 7x optical zoom lens which we think is rather impressive, especially in such a compact form. However, it is only 37mm at its widest and we found it rather lacking when compared with other shooters like Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FX36 (25mm ultra-wide-angle lens) or Fujifilm's FinePix F100fd (28mm wide-angle lens) which was showcased alongside it.

Olympus makes up for the lack of a wide-angle lens with an in-camera panorama feature. After you take the first shot, a small crosshair will appear on the left side of the screen and a white dot on the right. Pan the camera until the dot is in the middle of the crosshair and it will automatically snap a shot. After three shots are taken, the Mju 1010 will process them into one panoramic picture.

We like the Dual Image Stabilization, which combines sensor-shift (in accordance to hand movement) and high ISO sensitivity. This is a slightly more effective method to prevent blurred pictures, apart from the usual optical image stabilization (which shifts the lens instead of the sensor) system. However, the image may be noisier due to a higher ISO sensitivity being employed.

The Mju 1010 touts a 2.7-inch HyperClear LCD on the rear and, according to Olympus, it is supposed to give a "bright display even in brilliant sunlight". While we could see a clear image most of the time outdoors, we couldn't quite view the display when we positioned it directly under harsh sunlight.

There is also a Shadow Adjustment feature for backlit subjects. By activating it, the camera will instantly increase the exposure for the darker region to reveal more details. However, depending on the lighting condition, there were times when we got blown highlights in the brighter region of the picture.

The BrightCapture Technology in the Mju 1010 is a nifty feature for low-light photography. When shooting at night or in dimly lit conditions, the camera was able to detect and showed more of the scene on the LCD, which made focusing and framing the picture easier. This can probably be attributed to the TruePic III image processor, which promises faster image processing and better image quality.

Video recording-wise, the highest quality that this shooter can record is VGA (640 x 480 pixels). It is a little bit disappointing when the Mju 1010 is hailed as a power compact by Olympus when its competitors like Panasonic's FX36 and Samsung's NV24HD are going high-def and are capable of recording at 720p (1,280 x 720 pixels) quality. But unless you are thinking of shooting a feature film, the VGA-quality recording should do fine.

Besides all the shooting-assist features, the point-and-shoot also has face detection and 23 scene modes for different shooting situations. It has 14.7MB of internal memory (which is good for approximately four shots) and an xD-Picture Card expansion slot which we didn't really fancy as the highest capacity for this flash format currently is only 2GB and slightly more pricey compared with the common SD flash card.

Performance

Face detection worked well for the Mju 1010, tracking faces as they moved and adjusting exposure for it. For backlit subjects, however, we suggest you activate the Shadow Adjustment function. But as with most compact cameras, it had some difficulty recognizing faces in dim surroundings.

The Dual Image Stabilization system allowed us to take relatively sharp pictures even when the shutter speed was at 1/10 second. But the ISO sensitivity was increased to 1,600 which made the picture a tad blotchy.

Autofocus was fast in daylight but appeared a little sluggish when trying to focus at night or in low-light areas.

The flash output was generally well-balanced, but like most compact shooters, it had the occasional tendency to expose for just the subject in focus, leaving the background a patch of black.

The startup time clocked in at 1.5 second, slightly faster when compared with its rivals like Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FX36 which took 1.7 seconds.

The shutter lag measured a negligible 0.1 second, which we considered speedy. On top of that, the time to first shot was 2.6 seconds, which put the Mju 1010 on par with its competition in terms of speed.

The shooter is powered by the LI-50B rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, and Olympus claims this new juice pack increases the shooting time by 25 percent. After four days of shooting and chalking up 250 images, the battery was still going strong.

Image Quality

Colors were accurate most of the time, with skin tones looking natural across the ISO range. The dynamic range of the Mju 1010 shone at ISO 400 and lower, where fine details in shadow regions were captured.

The Mju 1010's lowest ISO sensitivity is at 80, which produced an almost noise-free image in our Lab Test. From ISO 100 to ISO 400, the noise level was pretty low. Push it up to ISO 800 and noise would start to show up in the darker region of the picture. At ISO 1,600, hints of noise were detected throughout the image though we have to say the noise-suppression algorithm of the TruePic III image processor worked well in cleaning up the digital artifacts.