By Leonard Goh
10/06/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,44458797p,00.htm

Olympus' foray into the compact superzoom segment is met with tough competition. Panasonic's TZ series has already established itself with consumers as the point-and-shoot with long zoom range, and Canon has also the PowerShot SX200 IS which offers more exposure control for shutterbugs. So what does the Mju 9000 deliver that can differentiate itself from rivals? Perhaps its biggest advantage is its size, as this compact camera claims to be the world's smallest and slimmest shooter with 10x optical zoom.

Design

As with other snappers in the compact superzoom category, the Mju 9000 footprint isn't small. The chunky polycarbonate body has a solid build which gives users a reassuring, professional feel. However, the Olympus is slightly smaller and lighter than the Lumix DMC-TZ7 and the PowerShot SX200 IS, but only on the specification sheets. When we held the Panasonic and the Mju 9000, there wasn't really much difference. That said, the Olympus compact is 44g lighter than the TZ7.

There are two silver strips along the sides of the point-and-shoot which has no functional purpose, though it does complement the look of the camera. However, it is prone to fingerprint stains as with most point-and-shoots with glossy casings.

The front of the camera is dominated by a large lens barrel which takes up almost half the estate. This means the flash has to be repositioned, which in the Mju 9000's case means relocating it near to the handgrip. The problem was we had a tendency to cover the flash with our fingers when taking pictures.

The back of the shooter houses a 2.7-inch LCD, mode dial, four-way navigation pad and buttons to access the menu, display options and playback functions. A good feature the Japanese company has implemented is backlighting for the buttons so it's easy to make changes to settings even when snapping shots in the dark.

Users who are familiar with Olympus point-and-shoots will notice that the menu interface has gotten a mini revamp. The icons are now in color instead of duo tones and that looks a lot more interesting. Other than that, the navigation remains the same.

The Mju 9000 is available in three colors--black, blue and champagne gold.

Features

In terms of features, the Mju 9000 is not exactly the powerhouse you would expect considering what its competitors are offering. Let's take an overview of its specifications compared with other models below.

Specifications/Model	Mju 9000	PowerShot SX200 IS	Lumix DMC-TZ7
Sensor resolution	12 megapixels	12 megapixels	10 megapixels
Dimension/weight	96 x 60 x 31mm/ 185g	103.0 x 60.5 x 37.6mm/220g	103.3 x 59.6 x 32.8mm/229g
LCD size	2.7-inch	3-inch	3-inch
Zoom range/focal length	10x optical/28-280mm	12x optical/28-336mm	12x optical/25-300mm
Max. video resolution	640 x 480 pixels at 30fps	1,280 x 720 pixels at 30fps	1,280 x 720 pixels at 30fps
Image stabilizer	Sensor-shift	Optical	Optical
Memory media	Internal, xD-Picture Card and microSD card	SD/SDHC	SD/SDHC
Related links		Review	First take

In summary, the Mju 9000 loses out in zoom range and doesn't have an HD video-recording feature. As with the TZ7, the Olympus doesn't have manual exposure control, so you have to look at the SX200 IS if you want to be able to tweak shutter speed and aperture settings.

However, the Mju 9000 has a couple of useful features which casual shutterbugs may be interested in. Firstly, there's the Beauty mode. After you snap a portrait with this option, the camera will process the image by smoothening the skin tones and making this look more natural. This is saved as a separate file and you can see the differences when comparing with the original.

Secondly, there's the iAuto function which is similar to Panasonic's intelligent Auto (iA) mode. This mode analyzes the scene and optimizes the exposure. But unlike the TZ7, this feature doesn't allow you to change the flash settings, so it will activate automatically (even when you don't want it to) when the surrounding is dim.

The Olympus point-and-shoot has a Super Macro mode which allows you to take extreme closeup shots. Although it is not as powerful as the Canon's 0cm macro mode, it was sufficient for us.

Bundled with the Mju 9000 (and other recent Olympus compact snappers) is a microSD card adapter. While this allows for expanding the storage to more than 2GB (the capacity limit when using the proprietary xD-Picture Card), using the adapter doesn't let you to snap in-camera panoramic shots.

Performance

The Mju 9000 starts up in 2 seconds, which is pretty typical for shooters in this class as the large lens barrel has to be activated. Shutter lag measured approximately 0.1 second, but what really impressed us was the burst shooting. This point-and-shoot can rattle off at 5 frames per second for 17 shots, albeit at a lower 3-megapixel. But we think this is good enough if you want to capture quick-action shots and share them online.

The onboard sensor-shift image stabilizer on the Mju 9000 worked well in our tests. We were able to take pictures in low-light conditions at a shutter speed of 1/20 second without noticeable blur.

Focusing can be faster on the Mju 9000. We found the point-and-shoot often took a while to focus on our subjects, and there were instances when it couldn't lock onto them even though the environment was well-lit.

The Mju 9000 is powered by a lithium-ion battery whose performance was quite impressive. We managed to snap about 250 shots before the battery indicator was down to one bar in power. Our usage patterns included a good balance of still image and video capture.

Image Quality

Noisy image quality at high ISO sensitivities is something which plagues point-and-shoots, but we were expecting better pictures from a compact megazoom like the Mju 9000. However, we were let down when we paced it through our Lab tests. The Olympus camera has an ISO sensitivity range of 64 to 1,600, but we wouldn't advise users to venture beyond ISO 200 if you want clean-looking snaps. At ISO 400, we noticed the image was speckled and fine details were lost. Needless to say, from ISO 800, digital artifacts dotted and smudged the photographs.

Compared with the TZ7 and SX200 IS, the Mju 9000's image quality was lackluster. We could tell that the three shooters' pictures are on par at ISO 200. But when we captured the same scene at ISO 400, the Canon and Panasonic shooters produced less noisy photos than the Olympus. At ISO 800, the SX200 IS performed the best, churning out shots that had the least noise and retained the most details. Take a look at the comparison chart on the left.

In all, we were satisfied with the color reproduction of the Mju 9000. Hues were natural and didn't look oversaturated. The tones appeared faithful to the scene, which showed that the auto white balance worked well to remove any unnatural color cast.

Conclusion

Despite its professional look, the Mju 9000 didn't quite deliver as expected especially in the image quality department. But if you are not fussy about image quality and just want a user-friendly, long-zoom compact, then perhaps you can consider this Olympus. If not, the SX200 IS or TZ7 may just be a better bet.