davidmanning's Full Review: Olympus Stylus 780 Digital Camera
To replace an aging Elph, I had several objectives: to find a compact point-and-shoot digital camera, with above-average optical zoom capabilities, a quality lens for normal photography, and good movie specifications, all at a competitive price.
I did my homework. I read reviews, I compared feature sets, and I looked at prices. Of the dozens of cameras I compared, I came down to the Olympus Stylus 780 -- and because it looks cooler and hides fingerprints, in black instead of silver.
Naturally, Olympus released an 8-megapixel version of this camera (the FE-340) a month after I bought the Stylus 780, but 7.1 megapixels is enough for pretty much anybody.
Basic Specs
Resolution: The Stylus 780 offers a maximum picture size of 7.1 megapixels -- 3072x2304, called SHQ mode -- and several other sizes, all at a 4:3 ratio, down to 640x480, plus a 1920x1080 pixel 16:9 widescreen setting. Personally, 7 megapixels is more than enough for any pictures I'd be printing to photo paper; since most of my photography goes straight to the Web (after resizing), photo size was not a factor.
Zoom: What was a factor, however, was the optical zoom. With a 5x optical zoom, or a 180mm effective focal length, the Olympus outclassed most every compact digital camera available. It adds a 5.6x digital zoom, but as with any digital zoom, it's fairly useless from a picture-quality standpoint, and the camera allows the user to turn off that feature so that it never engages.
Form Factor: Overall, the Stylus 780 measures 2.3"x3.9"x0.9", one of the smaller models on the market that has so many features. Because the Stylus 780 uses a thin rechargeable lithium battery (and even thinner xD memory cards), the body is under one inch thick, even with a 5x optical zoom; it's a little longer than many compact cameras, but it's a bit shorter.
Performance
The Stylus 780 starts up very quickly, in under a second. I find this feature useful for saving battery life. Also, the display screen will go black if the camera's untouched for a mere ten seconds (this feature can be turned off). It comes back, like a computer, when you press any button.
The Scene Mode offers 19 pre-set "best practices" lighting and action conditions (plus three specifically for underwater shooting with the proper housing), so the user need not worry about the individual settings for composing a proper picture (flash, shutter speed, ISO). Settings range from Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, Self-Portrait, Candle, and so forth, and after a couple of seconds the camera tells you what each scene means and, often, what the selection will actually do. It's basically an innovative way to bring the owner's manual into the camera. I've tested this for a few scenarios.
Dim lighting -- taking pictures in a dark bar, for instance. Basically, the flash seems to be more emphatic on these shots.
Action shots -- currently, merely decent, for cats running around the apartment. There are two different scene settings to allow for several quick snaps in succession, from which you can pick the ones that came out best. However, I still get a lot of blurred arms in candid party-like photos. I think I'd be better off setting the camera to a high ISO and selecting multiple-exposure (then discarding the bad photos).
Shooting pictures through glass -- While this made for some mockingly haunting pictures of my friend outside, in the dark, as traffic went by, it did not appear that the camera could ascertain what I was attempting to focus on. There was no glare, of course, and in a museum setting, steady hands and ambient light would greatly improve this test.
Best Features
Upgrading from an old Elph, the 2.5" LCD screen is like a movie screen to me. While I don't like having no viewfinder on the camera, the screen is a perfectly fine way to frame photos for the casual camera user.
The quick startup thrilled me with the Stylus 780. Within a second from turning it on, it's ready to shoot. Most settings are saved from previous use as well, so nothing needs to be set up again. It's also ready within two seconds of a flash photo, to reshoot -- an indicator on the display lets you know when the flash is fully charged, and when the memory is ready (typically much quicker than the flash).
Obviously, having a 5x optical zoom was a major deciding factor. Once I figured out how to get the camera to focus more effectively while zoomed (see below), my zoom photography improved considerably.
Super Macro mode is more impressive than I've had with any other camera. I've gotten closer than two inches to subjects (mostly food and food detail) and, while you can't use the flash (it's disabled for your convenience), the focus mechanism tends to perform reasonably well, to a point; if you're going to get in to the advertised 1.2 inches, it'll have to be a flat surface. Rounded items like bottles can get fairly close to this limit, however.
Form factor and weight were a concern as well, and at under 5 ounces with memory card and battery, well, it's not a concern. Also, it's less than an inch thick, so it isn't terribly uncomfortable in a pants pocket.
The Stylus 780 does allow for some better manual features, like white-balance adjust and manual ISO select. I'm not sure I've been missing these features, but I loved using high-speed film with my old SLR; combined with image stabilization that's very effective (but really no more effective than other cameras in the mid-$200s), some dim-light effects can be brought out with a tripod, like the moon. If I had a telescope adapter, maybe that would be an interesting experiment in my next trip home.
What I don't like
There's no middle ground when it comes to power saving. You either get a ten-second window, or fifteen minutes (maybe more). I'd love a wait time in the 1-2 minute range.
While movie mode is advertised as taking continuous recording at up to 640x480 and 30 frames per second, you can only work at this size in ten-second chunks. This really bothered me when I first saw this, in the manual (not the Olympus site or any store websites, naturally). You also can't zoom once you hit record, at any size.
Focusing while zooming is absolutely atrocious in the SPOT mode, which attempts to focus on whatever is in the [ ] in the center of the screen. iESP mode, however, picks the best it can, and it does a smashing job with finding something at the proper distance to use as a distance marker.
Some of the presets are a little off. For example, "Incandescent" is supposed to compensate for the yellowness of those bulbs, but I found that AUTO mode worked far better for this; Incandescent turned photos a distinctly blue hue. While this is a neat effect, it's not terribly useful for everyday indoor photography.
A minor point, but when downloading to the computer (I don't use the supplied software, in favor of software I procured thanks to Epinions), the camera turns itself on but asks you to choose where the data is heading. Um, I connected it to a PC, figure it out, okay?
Finally, if you don't use Olympus xD cards, you can't make Panorama photos natively. You'll have to stitch them together yourself in an editing package. Speaking as someone who does that anyway, it's a minor point at best, but I think it should be said.
For Your Consideration
While there are many, many more features that could be discussed at length, suffice to say the Olympus at its basic and intermediate usage levels performs excellently for me.
The battery life, always a concern with a digital camera, is certainly above average; I've charged the battery on average once every 200-250 shots, and I tend to leave the camera on for a minute or two when I'm shooting.
Photo quality appears perfectly fine for me. I've printed but a few myself, and how couldn't a 4x6 print look good with 7 megapixels to choose from? People using the Olympus 780 probably shouldn't be shooting a wedding for posterity, but it's clearly overkill for putting photos on Flickr. So lower-resolution settings are more than satisfactory.
Over all? I chose to give the Olympus Stylus 780 an above-average rating, based on its price point -- $219, with free delivery -- form factor, and of course feature set for those two concerns. It boasts several high-end features to satisfy users with at least a little background in photography, but does the point-and-shoot as well as anything I've checked out.
Add a better zoom than just about everything in its form factor, and the positives wind up outweighing the admittedly irritating negatives regarding movies, poor focusing, lack of viewfinder (so necessary in bright sunlight), and proprietary limitations.
I give a definite "put this one on the short list" to the Stylus 780 for anyone looking to own a digital camera he or she wants to use as an everyday point-and-shoot. It's only fair to let it show off alongside the ever-smaller digital cameras you're willing to consider.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 219 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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