Olympus xz1 review

Photo Review. A new flagship digicam with a fast zoom lens, a wide range olympus xz1 review exposure controls and support for raw file capture and p HD video recording. S Show opened in Las Vegas. An external stereo microphone adapter kit SEMA-1 is also available for clipping onto this port.

The Camera Store's newsletter includes promotions, video reviews, event information, contest links, interesting articles and more. Lost password? Recover password. Remembered your password? Back to login. The Olympus XZ-1 floats to the top of a sea of compacts exceeding most expectations! A few features of the camera caught my attention out of the box.

Olympus xz1 review

I do many types of photography. With my long-time background as a photojournalist I need an appropriate camera for street shooting. My love of the outdoors and wild places means a camera suitable for high quality landscape work. So does studio work. No one camera fits all. Not for any one photographer and his or her needs, nor different photographers. But one type of camera that most serious photographers need in common is a pocket camera. Something that easily comes along wherever one goes — from a walk in the park to a night on the town. If your eyes are open you never know when a worthwhile shot is going to present itself. But with the advent of cell phone cameras the ubiquitous always-present camera has become a reality, so why bother with anything else? A good question, and one that causes traditional camera makers to stay up at night with the sweats. Established No sooner is a niche identified than camera makes try and fill it. One niche that I have found fascinating over the years is the pocket camera. Sure, I have an iPhone and take snapshots with it.

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Ah yes, the Olympus XZ I was supposed to have this review up last week but with all of the Fuji X and Leica X1 hoopla I had to push this one back because I did not have the time to go over the images I snapped with the camera until now. I have been toting along this little powerhouse of a compact for a couple of weeks now and I have to say that I am pretty impressed with the cameras capabilities. I will keep this review short and sweet, and it will focus on my real world use of the camera and NOT charts and resolution tests. It will also be a VERY short review as there is no need to go on and on about the camera because it just does what it does, and it does it well. Olympus released the XZ-1 with a mission in mind.

Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement. Olympus XZ Olympus forges into that market with its XZ-1, a promising-looking model that's not quite as compact as the S95, but with an exceptionally fast f1. Its photo quality falls short of excellent, though. While the JPEG processing is a problem, it seems like the images don't come off the sensor clean enough to lay all the blame at the feet of the algorithm. I found that I could fix detail issues at low ISO sensitivities, but couldn't gain much latitude with respect to noise.

Olympus xz1 review

Professional features include a full manual exposure mode, raw image capture, wireless TTL flash control and compatibility with a wide range of accessories including external flashguns and macro LED lights, a detachable electronic viewfinder and external microphone set. The first mock-ups of a then-unnamed premium compact camera from Olympus were shown at the Photokina trade show in September last year. Although Olympus was rather secretive about it at the time, we were told that it would be the first-ever digital compact camera to feature a Zuiko branded lens and be compatible with a range of accessories originally developed for the Micro Four Thirds system. Then, on 6 January , Olympus announced the name and full specifications of the new product. The Olympus XZ-1 was born. While the name evokes memories of the Olympus XA, a groundbreaking but highly automated 35mm compact camera from , the Olympus XZ-1 is actually a much more serious proposition offering full manual control over the picture-taking process.

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Backlit subjects were generally handled very well and we found little evidence of flare and no veiling at all as long as the light source remained outside of the frame. The XZ-1 tries its best to keep the subject in focus while recording a video clip, but doesn't always succeed. The Olympus XZ-1 allows you to dial in exposure times as long as 60 seconds, and has a Bulb mode for exposures lasting as long as 16 minutes, which is very good news if you are seriously interested in night photography. Both dials are disabled in the iAuto mode. The official specifications do not mention the type of shutter used in the Olympus XZ-1 but it's definitely not a focal plane shutter, so there will be no black stripes across the frame when using a flash at a high shutter speed. It was hard to see this on the OLED itself. Gradation: Similar to dynamic range optimization systems from other manufacturers, Olympus' Auto Gradation setting applies local contrast adjustments in an attempt to open up shadow detail while preserving highlights. I thank you more if you make a purchase! Our difficult red leaf swatch starts to soften already, though. But I have the EP2 and the X and the voigtlander 25mm 0.

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The Olympus XZ-1 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with limited purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below. Since we compared the Canon S95 and Panasonic LX5 to each other in their respective reviews, we thought we'd do the same here with these top contenders in the premium pocket digicam space. Among the fixed-lens digicams, four other manufacturers have models that compete with the XZ-1 for the attention of serious photographers who want portability, performance and style. Zoom Range. These do not generally come cheap and to join the fray alongside such offerings as the Nikon Coolpix P and Canon Powershot G12 here we have Olympus with their new XZ Again, I would be happier if ISO was accessible by way of a dedicated button, and the click-stop dial was used for Program AE shift, a function sadly missing from the otherwise feature-packed Olympus XZ I do many types of photography. Photo Review. I had to download the Olympus-specific software in order to update the firmware, which allowed me to use the additional viewfinder. I have owned nearly all the high end compacts and the XZ-1 is the keeper because of the optional EVF.