Untested, Sold As Is

Includes Olympus u720SW Digital Camera ONLY, Does NOT include Battery or SD Card.

With a slimline stainless steel and aluminium body the new 7.1-megapixel Olympus Mju 720SW has rubberised gel sealing and shockproofing around the lens, circuit board, battery/card slot and USB port. Waterproof to three metres and capable of withstanding a 1.5 metre drop, the 720SW deserves its ‘Tough’ tag. It’s available in silver or blue and sports a 3x optical zoom lens and 2.5-inch LCD, but no viewfinder.

Three shooting modes are provided: Program AE; anti-shake; and scene; which are accessed via a tiny button on the rear panel. Anti-shake involves digital image stabilisation, which doesn’t affect subject coverage. Twenty-five scene presets include four underwater modes, four portrait modes and two shoot-and-select settings. The Movie mode is located in the Scene menu and offers VGA or QVGA recording with sound at 15 frames/second.

The 720SW also offers extended sensitivity, with ISO settings from 64 to 1600 and up to ISO 2500 for Available Light Portrait and Candle modes. White balance adjustments are limited to auto and six presets (three for fluorescent lighting). In-camera editing functions include red-eye fix, resizing, adding frames or text and colour, brightness and saturation adjustments.

Pictures from the test camera were rather contrasty, although saturation was modest and most colours were accurately recorded. Imatest showed resolution to be good up to ISO 800, after which it deteriorated sharply as image and colour noise increased. Moderate lateral chromatic aberration and slight distortion were found at both ends of the zoom range. White balance performance was average.

The camera took roughly two seconds to power-up but shut down instantly. We measured an average capture lag of 0.9 seconds, which reduced to 0.1 seconds with pre-focusing. The high-speed burst mode recorded shots at intervals of just under 0.3 seconds, while the standard mode captured at one second intervals. Images were processed within a second.