Olympus SP-350 review

There are plenty of more exotic-looking cameras available on the market, but the SP-350's sleek black design should appeal both to gadget lovers and serious photographers.

It's compact enough to put in a handbag or pocket but it remains extremely comfortable to hold. The accessory hotshoe and threaded lens ring show that this isn't just a point-and-click camera.

A 2.5" LCD screen dominates the back of the camera and, although its 115,000-pixel resolution is no higher than that of smaller screens, the extra size makes shooting and reviewing pictures more rewarding. An optical viewfinder is also included, although the view through it is pretty small. A basic set of physical controls belies its huge range of options and settings. Program, aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual controls are available, and histogram and exposure value (EV) readouts are there to help.

In full manual mode the brightness of the onscreen image reacts to shutter, aperture and ISO (but not flash) settings, and the same is true when using exposure compensation in the other modes. However, we thought it was odd that shutter and aperture settings are reflected on the screen immediately, but in order to see the effect of ISO settings it's necessary to half-press the shutter release button.

Other options include exposure bracketing in three or five steps, auto exposure lock, selectable spot auto focus and manual focus with a zoomed centre portion of the screen that makes it easy to ensure shots are pixel-sharp. There are seven white balance presets and a manual mode that you set by pointing the camera at a white object, plus a huge range of scene presets. Unfortunately, most of these settings are available only through the menu system, which isn't particularly quick to navigate. It isn't as fast as we'd like between shots either, taking between three and four seconds, and browsing pictures stored in memory is really sluggish. We found the flash a bit confusing, as the current setting is shown onscreen for just a couple of seconds, and the symbols for 'flash on' and 'flash off but required' are very similar.

Olympus cameras often tend to undersaturate colours, but here they were spot on. The camera excelled at capturing detail both in bright and dark areas of high-contrast compositions. Skin tones were flattering yet natural, regardless of lighting, and even a handheld self-portrait with the flash looked great. Noise was barely evident except at the ISO 400 setting, and the Super Macro mode, manual focus and 8-megapixel sensor produced some stunning macro shots. The only cause for concern over image quality was some occasional blooming, which produced a halo-like glow around the edges of bright areas in photos.

As a point-and-shoot camera, the SP-350's lack of swiftness means there are better options, such as Casio's Exilim EX-S500, which we reviewed in What's New, Shopper January 2006. However, as an enthusiast's camera that's small enough to carry everywhere with you, it's the best example we've seen. Rechargeable batteries are not included and, as always, the supplied memory is hopelessly inadequate, but even so, the price is extremely competitive for such a versatile camera that performs so well.