Olympus SP-570UZ 10MP Digital Camera with 20x Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom
Olympus SP-570UZ 10MP Digital Camera with 20x Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom
by Olympus
Average customer review: 
Date first available at Amazon.com: January 22, 2008
Buy new: Click to see price
57 used & new from $421.00
Product Description
With superior optics, power and portability, the SP-570 UZ provides a wealth of creative control without the expense of an SLR. Whether you’re looking for 20x optical zoom or 13.5fps sequential shooting, this all-in-one, versatile, compact camera is great for outdoor, travel and sports photography. The powerful, ultra-compact lens gives you unmatched shooting versatility with its amazing 20x optical zoom to bring you close to the action, and the wide-angle lens that lets you easily capture more of your scene. By featuring the TruePic III Image Processor, your images will come through with true-to-life color, sharper detail, and less noise. As if all that wasn’t enough, the SP-570 UZ also sports the new Face Detection technology, which recognizes and tracks faces within the frame to help you capture sharp, brilliant portrait photos. Focus Range Normal mode - Wide - 0.1m - infinity, Tele - 1.2m - infinity, Macro Mode - Wide - 0.1m - infinity, Tele - 1.2m - infinity, Super Macro mode - 1cm - infinity Auto - 1/2000 -1/2 sec. (up to 4 Sec. In Night Scene mode) Shutter Speed Manual - 1/2000 - 15 sec. Shutter Speed Auto, High Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 ISO 45MB Internal Memory (additional memory recommended to store more photos and video) Media Card Slot - xD-Picture Card (1GB,2GB) Built-in Flash with Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Fill-in + Red-Eye Reduction, Slow Synchro1, Slow1 + Red-Eye Reduction, Slow Synchro2, Off Flash modes Flash Working Range - 0.3m - 6.4m @ ISO 400 Wide, 1.2m - 4m @ ISO 400 Tele USB Connector, Audio/Video Output, DC Input Approximate Unit Dimensions - 4.7(W) x 3.3(H) x 3.4(D) Approximate Unit Weight - 15.7oz (without battery & media card)
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #385 in Camera & Photo
- Brand: Olympus
- Model: 226355
- Released on: 2008-04-14
- Dimensions: 3.10" h x 4.60" w x 3.10" l, .75 pounds
- Display size: 2.7
- Included Software: Yes
Features
- 10-megapixel image sensor captures enough detail for photo-quality 18 x 24-inch prints
- 20x optical dual image-stabilized zoom
- 2.7-inch HyperCrystal LCD
- Perfect Fix in-camera editing; includes Olympus Master 2 software
- Stores images on xD Picture Cards (not included)
Editorial Reviews
Manufacturer Description
The powerful, versatile Olympus SP-570 Ultra Zoom digital compact camera stands out from the crowd with an astounding precision-crafted 20x, wide-angle optical zoom (26-520mm equivalent) and 10 million pixels of resolution for superior image quality in any shooting situation.
The SP-570 UZ offers the advanced manual controls that experienced photographers demand and find on a digital SLR (single lens reflex), including a new zoom ring and hotshoe for external flash, and RAW format capture. At the same time, users can easily set the camera to operate like a simple point-and-shoot with automatic scene modes. Beyond its impressive lens and pixel count, the SP-570 UZ delivers other key innovations, including:
- Dual Image Stabilization combines the benefits of Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization and Digital Image Stabilization to compensate for both camera shake and moving subjects, ensuring beautiful, blur-free images in any situation;
- Face Detection continually tracks faces within the frame and automatically focuses, and optimizes exposure for sharp, brilliant portrait pictures even if your subject is moving;
- Shadow Adjustment Technology enables users to preview and capture images as the human eye sees them, compensating for difficult lighting situations and maintaining detail in highlights while improving the detail in the shadows to produce more balanced photos;
- Perfect Shot Preview takes the guesswork out of great photography by allowing users to preview and select various photographic effects live on the LCD screen, before snapping the shot; and
- Large, 2.7-inch HyperCrystal LCD with anti-glare technology improves visibility in bright sunlight and provides a wider viewing angle (176 degrees in every direction) for easier composition and viewing of images during playback.
Olympus SP-570UZ Highlights
Capturing it all, far and wide Precision optics is fundamental for producing quality images, and the SP-570 UZ comes fully equipped with the equivalent of three lenses in one complete camera. The bright, f2.8-4.5 lens provides the equivalent of 26-520mm focal length with 100x total seamless zoom (5x digital zoom).
Get close to the action with the camera’s versatile yet compact 20x super telephoto zoom and at the same time, the wide-angle (26mm) lens captures more in each frame. Its super-macro capabilities capture the subtlest details from as close as one centimeter.
The compact lens construction combines high-refractive, aspherical and extra-dispersion (ED) lens elements to deliver edge-to-edge sharpness and clarity. Whether it is capturing fast-action sports or for everyday use, this sturdy compact body with a wide-angle and telephoto lens provides the versatility to get the job done.
Dual Image Stabilization Dual Image Stabilization enables users to take crisp, clear pictures in virtually any shooting situation — adjusting for camera shake and a moving subject. Olympus’ mechanical Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization keeps images sharp by adjusting the CCD to compensate for camera shake, which often occurs when zooming in on your subject and in low-light conditions when shutter speeds are slower. Digital Image Stabilization freezes the action with high ISO sensitivity and fast shutter speeds that prevent blur caused by a moving subject.
Full manual control The Manual, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority modes give users versatility and control for optimal performance in any situation. Users can express their creative vision — adjusting the f-stop for detailed portraits with softened backgrounds, or slowing the exposure speed to create the blurred effect of motion, or just sit back and let the camera do the thinking through the use of the automatic settings. Manual focus is also available for users who want to have full creative control.
Hotshoe for external flashes The SP-570 UZ offers a hotshoe for connecting an external flash, providing greater versatility for different lighting effects. Additionally, the SP-570 UZ supports wireless flashes, enabling a user to capture beautiful images even in difficult lighting situations.
Face Detection Face Detection tracks faces within the frame and automatically focuses (Face Detection AF) and optimizes exposure (Face Detection AE) quickly for sharp, brilliant portrait pictures. Now, your subject’s face is in focus whether it is in the center of the target area or not.
High-Speed Sequential Shooting and Pre-Capture The SP-570 UZ is capable of capturing images at an incredible 13.5 frames per second (with a reduced image size of 3 megapixels). The inclusion of Pre-Capture technology, which works in conjunction with High-Speed Sequential Shooting, enables users to capture the action before and after fully pressing the shutter button. Pre-Capture begins working as soon as the focus is locked, automatically archiving five frames in the camera’s buffer memory prior to the shutter release — virtually guaranteeing that none of the action will be missed even if the user’s reaction time is slow. Perfect for situations where timing is essential, such as photographing a tennis player serving, children playing or a whale breaching.
2.7-inch HyperCrystal LCD The SP-570 UZ utilizes a HyperCrystal LCD designed to offer a wider viewing angle without glare or shadow. Now, images and movies appear crisp and clear on the LCD with a greater than 140-degree viewing angle (left-to-right or up-and-down), while composing or reviewing an image. Its electronic viewfinder is very sharp and includes a diopter to adjust to one’s own eye strength when not wearing glasses.
Shadow Adjustment Technology Shooting outdoors in bright daylight can be tricky because of the extreme contrast between dark shadowed areas and bright sunlight areas. While the human eye is capable of detecting the nuances between dark and light and all the details in between, image sensors traditionally have not been quite as sensitive. The SP-570 UZ addresses this challenge head-on with a new Shadow Adjustment Technology, which compensates for extreme contrast where the shadow areas are underexposed and lack visible detail. With the new technology, users can preview and capture images that have the same contrast as seen with the naked eye.
Perfect Shot Preview The SP-570 UZ features a Perfect Shot Preview mode that enables users to preview and select various photographic effects (such as zoom, exposure compensation, white balance and metering) on a live, multi-window screen before snapping the shot. Perfect Shot Preview enables users to see precisely what the image will look like when adjustments are made, ensuring users are capturing the exact image they want. It is an ideal way for novice users to learn about the effects of different photography techniques.
Perfect Fix in-camera editing Olympus’ Perfect Fix feature offers quick solutions for unanticipated image quality issues, which may be caused by several adverse conditions. Lighting Fix can be used to adjust any underexposed areas and Red-Eye Fix can be used to reduce the effects of red-eye sometimes caused by a direct flash. Additional in-camera editing functions can be quickly accessed right in the camera by the touch of a button; features available include resizing, trimming, frames, text options, black and white, and sepia.
TruePic III image processor Olympus’ enhanced TruePic III image processor produces crystal clear photos using all the pixel information for each image to deliver superior picture quality with more accurate colors, true-to-life flesh tones and faster processing speeds. TruePic III also captures sharp images at high ISO settings, which are traditionally associated with increasing image noise or producing grainy photos.
31 shooting modes The SP-570 UZ makes it easy to take great photos in a variety of scenarios and lighting situations with 31 shooting modes, including a Multi-Fireworks mode. To capture the most stunning fireworks displays, this multi-exposure feature overlays the fireworks to create the memory of a lifetime. To activate any of the camera’s pre-set modes, simply select the desired mode for portraits, landscapes, night scenes, fast-action and more.
Olympus Master 2 software Olympus Master 2 software provides the ultimate in digital imaging management. An intuitive user interface makes downloading to your computer quick and simple, and images are easily organized by folders or albums and searchable by date in Calendar view. Also, with one-click editing tools, such as red-eye removal, images can be touched up before printing or e-mailing. Online support, templates, firmware upgrades and other user services are just a mouse-click away. Use the optional muvee Theater Pack to create professional quality slide shows and DVDs from your pictures using any of several built-in templates.
Customer Reviews
Good improvements but questionable design
As a pretty happy owner of Olympus SP550UZ, I borrowed this latest version, SP570UZ to tested it out for several days under various conditions. I immediately saw few similarity and few non-similarity with this camera to the SP550UZ that I owned. From now on, I am dropping the SP and UZ reference and just calling them "550" and "570".
Let me hit the good points first. First of all, I thought the capture speed and the write speed of 570 have definitely improved over my 550 camera. Of course, this is still not lighting fast but its an improvement. I think the weak xD card is the blame anyway as I was using their "H" card all the way. Second, you definitely see the difference between 28mm wide for 550 and 26mm wide for 570. Only 2mm difference but you can see it. Not much difference between the 18x and 20x though. Like the 550, the 570 is very easy to hold, handled and grip. The 570 is slighter larger but the weight felt the same. Major improvement I really like in control for the 570 lies in the fact that you can make certain adjustments like flash compensation right off the back LCD menu now instead of going through the menu system in the 550. The shadow adjustment mode does work pretty well under ideal condition. But not all that well depending on the extreme cases. Face detection system works well although I am not really a great fan of this. Still for both features, it better then not having one at all. Photos came out looking very good under most condition and I think they improved the color capture for red which was somewhat of a problem for the 550. The dual image stabilizer proves to be excellent once again and capturing at extreme zoom proves to be quite good as long as there is enough light. But those are the highlights of the good things about this camera. I am not going to bother going down the specs since Amazon have been so kind to provide it for all to read. One of the previous reviewers wrote that the battery life quite excellent and I do concur with that. But there is a reason for that in my next paragraph.
The bad things about this cameras lies in three elements. One is that the electronic viewfinder is harder to use thanks to the increase reliance on the LCD that is almost on all the time. I like using the viewfinder as an old film SLR guy but if needed, I can adjust to this. Second element lies in the zooming…there is no auto-zoom. All the zooming are done by hand - your hand that is and to be honest, it is not an exact science here. While you still got the auto-focus, you have to manually zoom up and down. The lens control actually feel pretty "rubbery" to borrowed another person’s term. Worst, with my 550, I can zoom and fire away one handed. There is no way I can do that with 570 since one hand is on the shutter while other hand have to adjust the zoom. Unless you got super long fingers, most normal folks would have to do it two handed. The lack of the feel of a firm control in zooming is quite puzzling and I supposed anyone can get a handled on it with enough practice but still felt pretty weak. A whole star was taken from the review on this feature. I wasn’t too impressed. By the way, this is why the battery life have improve…camera no longer have to zoom, you have to do it yourself. (And they save weight by not adding the auto-zoom device into the camera.) Finally, Olympus totally failed to improved their camcorder system for the UZ series. Like the 550, 570 is light-years behind…let say Canon S5 IS in terms of taking video. The videos taken by Olympus 570 is okay if the camera cost $150 but totally unacceptable for $450 plus camera. It can be pretty grainy and sound was pretty weak. Another star gone for that.
I supposed I could go on but I wrote enough. I am sure a more professional reviews on the Internet is forth coming and anyone interested can continue to investigate. I am not sure if this camera is really right for inexperience photographer or even for a casual one. It quite advanced piece of digital camera but its not really well designed. Manual zooming is nice as an option but not as a permanent condition. And the video recording for a camera of this price range is really pathetic. Personally, I can live without the video but zooming feature is a step backward to the 20th century…not a step forward for the 21st.
Good solid camera
Tried the camera out for the past 4-5 days, under various conditions. All and all, for the price and the functions/ability this camera offers, it is a solid camera.
First of all, this is obviously no SLR camera. The aperture and the shutter speed are more limited than I would prefer. As such, it probably might turn off people that are looking for a SLR styled camera. While the high ISO values allow you to take pictures in low light conditions, the noise reduction is simply not enough to make those pictures look presentable. Image stabilization was no match for my cat in those low light situations, even with high ISO values. Fast shutter speed remains the key against blurry pictures.
The selling point of this camera, the 20X zoom, works as advertised. The zooming ring works fine, but it might not be sensitive enough if you are trying to zoom meticulously. There are 4 AF modes to choose from, ranging from giving the camera total control of choosing the object to focus on (not as "smart" as I like), face recognition, center focusing, to basically using the arrow keys to manually point at the area you want to focus. Also, there is a manual focus option, though not very practical to use, IMO.
The "High-Speed Sequential Shooting" I think is handicapped by the slow writing speed of the XD-Card. Perhaps the H XD card might make a different, but the M XD card was simply too slow. I have yet to try the pre-capture mode.
The LCD is big and clear, and you have the option of using the viewfinder window to take pictures, though it is not a "real" viewfinder window.
The battery life on this thing is amazing. It would take some heavy shooting to drain the battery out in one day (of course, that depends on the kind battery you use).
All in all, there are goods and bads to this camera, but for the price and the functions that you got, I think it is a good camera for what it is designed for.
Great camera for soccer moms!
I bought this camera early in April, from another vendor. I didn’t want to wait until Amazon’s April 15 release date! My newfound hobby is photographing high school rugby games, so I am by no means a professional and truly don’t know much at all about photography at all. I had been using a Kodak Easyshare with 12x zoom with good results, but I wanted to get closer and I wanted faster sequential shooting. Yet, I didn’t want to buy a $1,000 plus SLR camera. After all, I’m not trying to win a Pulitzer. I’m not frantically concerned with crisp color, and I don’t have time to learn a million functions. I just want to get the "money shot" - a player with ball in hand, hair flying, face in grimace, muscles straining, dirt clods and sweat droplets spraying around - you know what I mean. After some research I discover that my Easyshare, and this Olympus, are in a class of camera called point-and-shoot super zoom - yeah! That’s exactly what I wanted! And THIS camera, at 20x zoom gets you closer than any other out there. So I was sold. And wow, are my pictures with this camera GREAT! I started with the pre-programmed sports mode, but found that my best action shots were in the "P" mode, at a speed of H1 (and that’s not even the fastest speed!), with image quality = fine. I saved these settings as a "my mode" and can adjust brightness/exposure with the dial at the top of the camera if I need to. Other than the great money shots I am getting with this camera, I like the battery life. I have taken up to 1,500 pictures at a time without having to change the battery, and I use the screen a lot. I also like that I am not bound to a monopod - it’s light, it’s point and shoot, I can move around and adjust things quickly and catch just about all the action. The only thing I don’t like is the amount of time it takes for sequentially shot pictures to "save". It can be frustrating to wait on the camera to save while action is going on that you can’t capture. This was a problem with my Easyshare, too, and I suspect is a problem with any point and shoot with sequential shooting capabilities. The only reason I’d ever upgrade to an SLR is that this does not appear to be an issue with those types of cameras. If my fascination with sports photography continues to grow, I imagine someday I will buy an SLR. But for now, I am really satisfied with this Olympus and it’s 20x zoom and dozens fps shooting speed!
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