Olympus Launches World’s First 18x Optical Zoom Digital Camera: The Sp-550 Uz

[Clockunder]

Can go up to ISO 5000 ! Unbelievable ! :bigeyes:

Everyone can go up to even higher ISO but the question is how much noise, how much details are lost, how much dynamic range is lost, how much pixels have to be sacrificed etc.

Don't be deceived by technical specifications and numbers. At the end of the day, it's picture quality that matters for a camera.

 

[hammer_400]

hi clockunder, while your comments are breathtakingly long and detailed, alot is still premature conjecture, and ur comparing apples and oranges here, its like comparing a bigma on a full frame to a 70-300 on an aps sized sensor, u can't just compare focal length and sensor size... its the whole package

 

[Pablo]

I am looking forward to stocking this camera.

Also I am interested in all the posts here both positive and negative.

As you may imagine, there are going to be many customers that will want to buy it purely because it has 18 x zoom.

These customers don't look into quality of what they take just (mine is bigger than yours).

It will obviously affect the sales of the FZ50 (price * zoom) and it will take some talk to convince them otherwise.

In all, a very interesting situation :bsmilie:

 

[Stanly]

Wow finally some breakthrough in megazoom cam.....

I guess this could be one of the hotsell item in 2007.....

 

[marky]

Wonder whats the price for this...

 

[Clockunder]

hi clockunder, while your comments are breathtakingly long and detailed, alot is still premature conjecture, and ur comparing apples and oranges here, its like comparing a bigma on a full frame to a 70-300 on an aps sized sensor, u can't just compare focal length and sensor size... its the whole package

Except my speculation about this new Olympus camera's the noise performance, the rest are just hard facts about focal lengths, sensor sizes, crop factors, motion blur vs handshake blur speeds etc.

Any knowledgeable photographer knows that he is not getting longer focal length in this Olympus when its stated specifications of 500mm apparently says so. He knows that it's just a result of a tiny image sensor used and it is a hard fact and not a speculation. :bsmilie:

 

[Clockunder]

I am looking forward to stocking this camera.

Also I am interested in all the posts here both positive and negative.

As you may imagine, there are going to be many customers that will want to buy it purely because it has 18 x zoom.

These customers don't look into quality of what they take just (mine is bigger than yours).

It will obviously affect the sales of the FZ50 (price * zoom) and it will take some talk to convince them otherwise.

In all, a very interesting situation :bsmilie:

From the responses in forums (here as well as others such as DPreview), even photographers are awed by the apparent 18x optical zoom, let alone the ignorant consumers.

Olympus must be commended for their marketing.

 

[Clockunder]

Wonder whats the price for this...

The announcement states US$499.99 in the US.

So it could be retailed at less than S$800 in S'pore.

 

[NMSS_2]

He knows that it's just a result of a tiny image sensor used and it is a hard fact and not a speculation.

it was never a hard fact that small sensor can only produce lousier image. only test images will show the truth about the IQ. we just have to wait and see instead of basing what we know as of now.

if you use oly long enough then we don't have to tell you why oly didn't use aggressive noise reduction.

 

[Clockunder]

it was never a hard fact that small sensor can only produce lousier image. only test images will show the truth about the IQ. we just have to wait and see instead of basing what we know as of now.

if you use oly long enough then we don't have to tell you why oly didn't use aggressive noise reduction.

I didn't say that it was a hard fact that smaller sensor can only produce lousier image. :bsmilie:

I repeat the hard fact which I said earlier here : Any knowledgeable photographer knows that he is not getting longer focal length in this Olympus when its stated specifications of 500mm apparently says so. He knows that it's just a result of a tiny image sensor used and it is a hard fact and not a speculation.

 

[hammer_400]

hi clockunder, while u are correct that the focal lengh is not the greatest around, u also need to consider the design on the lens, the oly in the end allows from a 28mm equiv to 500mm equiv, that is 18x zoom! u can't say that a 18-200 is nothing to shout about becos there are 70-300 zooms around and the 70-300 has an extra 100mm, so the 20omm and the 11X zoom of the 18-200 is nothing to shout about, can you?

 

[tomcat]

Since the focal range of the FZ50 is 35-420mm, by the same computation, the FZ50 is only (35/0.802) or 43.5mm at the wide-angle end of the zoom as compared to 28mm on the Olympus.

 

[Clockunder]

hi clockunder, while u are correct that the focal lengh is not the greatest around, u also need to consider the design on the lens, the oly in the end allows from a 28mm equiv to 500mm equiv, that is 18x zoom! u can't say that a 18-200 is nothing to shout about becos there are 70-300 zooms around and the 70-300 has an extra 100mm, so the 20omm and the 11X zoom of the 18-200 is nothing to shout about, can you?

Since the focal range of the FZ50 is 35-420mm, by the same computation, the FZ50 is only (35/0.802) or 43.5mm at the wide-angle end of the zoom as compared to 28mm on the Olympus.

If I use the Pana FZ30/FZ50 and I crop it to 1/2.5" sensor size, I get 535mm @6.7MP.

If I don't crop, I get 35mm @10.4MP.

So the range is 35mm@10.4MP - 535mm@6.7MP although you have to do some cropping work yourself to simulate the longer range.

That was why I said that the wide 28mm is something noteworthy and only matched by Fujifilm's prosumer cameras S6500fd and S9500/9600.

 

[philshots]

wow this is on DPreview's page now.
that is some lens! Too bad haven't found a detailed review on the photo quality.
28-500mm is REALLY sweet (500mm will be very usable due to IS) :thumbsup:

Sometimes, the Olympus engineers give us a big surprise every now and then with their creative technological innovation. They like to think out of the box and be the first to try out things; not just a follower of current trends. This is good for consumers. If the SP 550 turn out to be a success, more people will buy into the Olympus system.

Let's just hope that the local service center is able to "catch up with technology" :embrass: