Olympus 780 review

It has been a little while since we were dazzled by an Olympus camera, but the company is back with a bang with its 780.

This digital camera shares its aluminium, weatherproof design with the rest of the range, and the ultra-compact size means it will slip comfortably into pockets and bags. The 5x zoom lens is a significant improvement on the 3x zooms on most ultra-compact cameras, and optical image stabilisation is built into the CCD to avoid blur from camera shake. Around the back is the obligatory 2in, 230,000-pixel screen and the buttons benefit from backlit icons to improve visibility in low light. The only thing we don't like about the design is that the flash risks being obscured by a finger during shooting.

Olympus has overcome the performance issues of its previous compact digital cameras. The 780 switched on and captured a picture in 1.7 seconds, with subsequent shots averaging every two seconds. Browsing pictures on xD card was much faster than on previous Olympus cameras and it's now possible to switch off the text that sprawls across the screen during image playback. The slow performance of xD media hampered the 1fps continuous mode at the top-quality setting, although dropping from SHQ to HQ compression removed the bottleneck. A high-speed continuous option captured 3-megapixel shots at 3.8fps. Menu delving was rarely necessary, as a function button gave quick access to the most useful photographic controls.

Outdoor image-quality tests revealed reasonably sharp detail with smooth, accurate colours and very little noise. Focus tended to be sharp in a relatively narrow range of distances, which is great if you want to draw attention to a subject but less than ideal when capturing a group of subjects at different distances. Cameras with aperture priority modes allow you to choose between the two extremes, but this isn't available here. However, detail was excellent when shooting faraway objects, thanks to the 5x zoom and optical image stabilisation. The optical image stabilisation also came in useful when shooting indoors without the flash. Some noise was visible in low light, even at low ISO speeds, but the ISO 800 setting turned in surprisingly clean, detailed photos and ISO 1600 proved usable in emergencies.

The 780's best asset is its handling of high-contrast scenes. All cameras adjust their exposure based on the amount of light, but the 780 seemed less concerned about average brightness and more about avoiding clipping of shadows and highlights. As a result, more detail was preserved in bright and dark areas. Meanwhile, a dedicated button activates Shadow Adjustment Technology, a new feature that's designed to retrieve details that are hidden in shadows. We have heard similar claims from other manufacturers but struggled to find any hard proof of the technologies in action. However, we can safely conclude that Shadow Adjustment Technology worked superbly.

When shooting a portrait against a bright background, activating the feature brightened up the subject's face without overexposing the background. Similarly, when shooting against a dark background, it reduced the overexposure in the subject and the underexposure of the background. The downside was increased noise and colour quantisation in the darker areas, but this is a fair price to pay for such a useful feature. In less challenging lighting, it made pictures look a little flat, though, so it's worth activating it only when necessary. Hopefully, Olympus's next implementation will be able to switch itself in and out automatically.