Here’s my review of the Stylus 1050SW aka mju 1050SW, Olympus’ latest heavy-duty compact camera – now with tap control. Along with the review, I’ve got the Olympus Stylus 1050SW photo gallery ready for you.
DPInterface Olympus Stylus 1050SW Review
Brad Soo – January 14th, 2009
Now here’s another one of those cameras from Olympus that you can just toss around freely and literally bring anywhere. It’s the shockproof, waterproof and freezeproof Stylus 1050SW. The camera also packs 10 megapixels, 3X optical zoom, which aren’t too out of the ordinary… but wait till you hear this: the Stylus 1050SW has a bizarre feature known as Tap Control, which does exactly what it sounds. The previous “durable” cameras from Olympus were excellent in terms of build quality (of course!) but didn’t impress much in the image quality department; will the Stylus 1050SW be any different?
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW is also known as the Olympus mju 1050SW, depending on where you live. I’ll be using the Stylus name here like I’ve always been doing, for consistency’s sake.
Size and Weight
(163.6) 86.8 x 54.8 x 22.0 mm (125 g) – Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital ELPH
(160.4) 86.0 x 54.0 x 20.4 mm (130 g) – Canon PowerShot SD770 IS Digital ELPH
(160.4) 89.7 x 51.7 x 19.0 mm (100 g) – Casio Exilim Z85
(174.1) 96.7 x 57.3 x 20.1 mm (126 g) – Casio Exilim Z150
(167.7) 92.0 x 55.7 x 20.0 mm (150 g) – Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd
(172.2) 93.7 x 57.8 x 20.7 mm (126 g) – Kodak EasyShare M1033
(179.5) 97.5 x 60.0 x 22.0 mm (145 g) – Nikon Coolpix S60
(174.4) 93.0 x 62.0 x 19.3 mm (152 g) – Olympus Stylus 1050SW*
(170.8) 94.9 x 53.4 x 22.5 mm (119 g) – Panasonic Lumix FS5
(180.4) 99.0 x 56.0 x 25.4 mm (145 g) – Pentax Optio W60*
(165.8) 93.6 x 57.2 x 15.0 mm (126 g) – Sony Cyber-shot T77
All the weight figures above show when the camera is empty without a battery or memory card
*Waterproof out of the box
The Olmpus Stylus 1050SW is one of the larger cameras (but surprisingly, one of the thinnest because only its surface area is larger than most of the other cameras) and the heaviest among the group of compact point-and-shoots above. However, it makes up for being a “plus size” compact camera, by being a very solid and durable one. None of the cameras come close to the Stylus 1050SW in terms of the amount of abuse that the camera is able to handle.
Box contents
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW comes along with a few items you’d expect with your digital camera:
- LI-42B rechargeable lithium-ion battery
- Battery charger
- microSD to xD-Picture card adapter
- Wrist strap
- USB and A/V cables
- Camera software CD (Olympus Master)
- User’s manual
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW has 41.6 MB of built-in memory which is great for storing a small album of your favorite pictures in the camera but not useful at all when it comes to practical picture snapping. The Stylus 1050SW uses xD-Picture cards (which seem to be limited to Olympus and Fujifilm cameras nowadays) and is also able to support microSD cards via an included adapter. I would recommend getting a minimum of 2 GB with the camera so you won’t have to worry about running out of space. And choosing to use microSD is better, in my opinion, since they are more widely used in electronic products nowadays compared to xD-cards only used in Olympus and some Fujifilm cameras.
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and comes with a charger.
240 shots – Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital ELPH
300 shots – Canon PowerShot SD770 IS Digital ELPH
240 shots – Casio Exilim Z85
280 shots – Casio Exilim Z150
170 shots – Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd
275 shots – Kodak EasyShare M1033
140 shots – Nikon Coolpix S60
200 shots – Olympus Stylus 1050SW
300 shots – Panasonic Lumix FS5
310 shots – Panasonic Lumix FX37
205 shots – Pentax Optio W60
220 shots – Sony Cyber-shot T77
All the cameras above are rated with rechargeable batteries with LCD on according to CIPA Standard
With the ability to take 200 pictures on a single battery charge (CIPA Standard), the Olympus Stylus 1050SW is a bit below the average of 240 shots per charge in the compact camera category.
Accessories
There are various camera cases and an AC adapter available to the Stylus 1050SW but obviously no lens attachments or filters. You might also want to look into getting a waterproof case if you want to bring the camera deeper into the water than you could without the case.
Camera Tour
Over here, Olympus decided to try using a sliding lens cover with the Stylus 1050SW, making it look even more like all those other thin cameras out there. One thing you won’t miss here is the rugged look of the camera combined with sharp angles. The camera lives up to its looks, being very solid and of course, able to survive splashes and drops. The Olympus Stylus 1050SW is shockproof up to 5 feet (1.5 meters), waterproof to 10 feet (3 meters) and also freezeproof down till -10 degrees Celcius.
In terms of ergonomics, the Stylus 1050SW doesn’t do much to improve on the tiny buttons of previous cameras – they’re still small and hard to press. Tap control only does so much to solve the button clutter and it takes quite a while to get used to.
On the front of the Stylus 1050SW is a decent sized sliding cover which serves to protect the camera’s lens and doubles as the power switch as well. Yeah, speaking of the lens, there’s a rather pedestrian 3X optical zoom lens here on the Stylus 1050SW, equivalent to 38 – 114 mm, and the lens never extends from the body. My gripes with the lens are the slow aperture range of f3.5-5.0 and no optical image stabilization.
To the left of the lens is the Olympus Stylus 1050SW’s LED lamp which can be used as external lighting for low-light and macro shooting. Next up is the built-in flash unit which has a powerful average range of 20 cm – 5.3 m at wide-angle and that drops to 3.7 m at telephoto. Do note that ISO 800 was used to obtain those numbers so the range may drop if you decide to use lower ISO values. The camera’s microphone used for recording sound can be found towards the right end on the front.
There’s a decently sized 2.7 inch LCD screen on the back of the Stylus 1050SW which is fairly sharp with 230,000 pixels. The screen is viewable in low-light conditions and still visible in bright light – though you may have to find the correct angle to prevent reflections.
To the upper right side of the LCD is the camera’s zoom controller followed by the mode dial. The mode indicator also acts as the camera’s activity indicator light. Right, let’s tour the mode dial clockwise:
- Automatic mode
- Program mode – All menu settings are unlocked
- Digital image stabilization – The camera boosts ISO automatically in an attempt to take a sharp photo
- Scene mode
- Guide – Like the name says, a guide to taking pictures built right into the camera
- Movie mode
- Favorites
- Playback mode
Below the mode dial, there’s a bunch of buttons with the navigation cluster where I found it hard to press a button without bumping another button or two beside it. Anyway, the first two buttons are the MENU and direct playback/transfer order buttons – both are self-explanatory.
Next is the five-way navigation pad where each direction offers quick access to a shooting function:
- Up – Exposure compensation (+/-2 exposure in 1/3 step increments)
- Down – Self-timer (Off, on – 12 seconds)
- Left – Macro (Off, normal macro, super macro)
- Right – Flash setting (Auto, auto with redeye reduction, on, off)
- Center – Function menu/Set
The function menu on the camera is brought up by pressing the center button on the navigation pad:
- White balance (Auto, daylight, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent 1,2 & 3)
- ISO sensitivity (Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600)
- Drive mode (Single-shot, normal burst, high-speed burst)
- Metering method (ESP, spot, face detection)
- Image size and compression
We’ll head on to the last two buttons now. The one on the left is the DISPLAY button which toggles the amount information shown on the LCD display and also brings up a help screen when in menus. Holding the DISPLAY button for more than 1 second turns on the LED light on the front of the Stylus 1050SW.
The other button is the Shadow Adjustment button which toggles that feature on and off. Shadow adjustment helps brighten up darker areas in your pictures at the cost of some extra noise and processing time. Pressing this button in playback mode will allow you to delete photos you’ve taken.
At the top of the Stylus 1050SW, there’s a power button and shutter button. That means you can turn the camera on directly in playback mode without having to slide open the lens cover first.
On this side of the Olympus Stylus 1050SW is the camera’s speaker.
And on the other side over here, you’ll find the wrist strap mount and a single connector port used for many things such as USB and A/V out connection. The cover over the port is well sealed (check out the rubber padding) to keep dust and water out.
And lastly, there’s a metal tripod mount and battery/memory card compartment located here at the bottom of the Stylus 1050SW. Obviously, you won’t be able to swap memory cards here because of the tripod mount location.
The battery/memory card compartment door opens outwards, which means you can’t open it when the camera is on a tripod.
Oh, let me explain about the Olympus Stylus 1050SW’s unique tap control feature. Basically, you can tap the sides, top and back of the camera to tell it to perform certain actions (this does not mean the LCD is a touchscreen though, it is NOT). Such a feature is useful for those who have large hands or if you’re wearing gloves (diving, skiing, surf boarding anyone?) so you don’t need to look at the small labels and punch the tiny buttons on the back. As you can see, here are the tap functions in shooting mode:
- Double tap top – OK/Select
- Tap left side – Shadow Adjustment
- Tap right side – Flash setting
- Tap back surface – Enter playback mode
Does it work? Yes, tap control does work and is well implemented. But if you don’t like/are not used to Tap Control it, you can always turn it off in the menu. I’d really like to see the ability to customize the function that each ‘tap’ performs… but right now, isn’t it brilliant, you have THREE ways to enter playback (mode dial, button and tap control)?
Taking pictures (Shooting mode)
On screen, there’s a whole lot of shooting information, settings and exposure details you can see plus a live histogram. Unfortunately, there’s no battery indicator on the Olympus Stylus 1050SW.
The image resolution options available on the Stylus 1050SW are 10 MP, 5 MP, 3 MP, 2 MP, 1 MP and VGA. There’s also two image compression options available; Fine and Normal. A widescreen image option is available to take photos that will fit 16:9 television and computer screens nicely but that option only shoots at 2 megapixels. A 2 GB memory card will hold around 750 full-resolution, Normal quality (10 megapixels) photos.
Pressing the MENU button on the Stylus 1050SW calls up a grid of icons where you can enter the submenu indicated by each of the icons. The camera menu contains a list of 8 items, some of them aren’t a whole lot different from what you’d find in the function menu:
- White balance, ISO, drive and metering mode – I’ve talked about these when discussing the Function menu
- Fine zoom and digital zoom – Digital zoom lowers image quality as usual by using digital magnification while fine zoom crops your pictures instead
- AF mode – iESP (multiple point), spot, face detection/li>
- Sound memo (On/off)
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW has the usual Perfect Shot Preview which happens when you change a setting such as exposure compensation and the camera enables you to “preview” the effects of different setting changes all at once.
The Stylus 1050SW has the usual Olympus affair when it comes to macro and scene modes. In normal macro mode, you can take pictures as close as 20 cm at wide-angle and 30 cm at telephoto. Use super macro mode, and the camera limits the focusing range to a closer 7 – 50 cm.
There are also plenty of scene modes on the camera: portrait, landscape, landscape + portrait, night scene, night + portrait, sport, indoor, candle, self portrait, available light portrait, sunset, fireworks, cuisine, behind glass, documents, auction, shoot and select 1 & 2, smile shot, beach and snow, pre-capture movie, underwater snapshot and snow.
Video Recording
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW features a pretty standard movie mode which should be fine for most people. The camera will allow you to record VGA (640 x 480) movies with sound at 30 FPS. You also have the option to extend recording times by lowering the frame rate to 15 FPS, lower resolution to QVGA (320 x 240) or both.
Exposure is automatically adjusted as expected, but you cannot use optical zoom while recording a movie. Movie quality was overall acceptable with average video and sound quality.
Performance
All performance testing of the Olympus Stylus 1050SW was performed using a 1 GB Olympus xD-Picture card.
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW has a 1.5 second start up time after you slide open the front lens cover. Autofocus times are good In bright light, varying from 1/5 to 1/3 second. In low-light, the camera struggles to lock focus unless you turn the LED lamp on which will help things a bit.
- Shot-to-shot speed – 1 shot every 2.3 seconds, just average
- Flash recharge time using a fully charged battery – 5 seconds on average
The Stylus 1050SW has a sub-standard full-resolution burst mode which takes pictures at 0.4 to 0.5 FPS. That’s around 1 photo every 2 seconds, since the camera refocuses between each shot. Opt for the high-speed burst mode, and the camera lowers resolution to 3 megapixels and takes up to 25 photos at a speedy 5.5 FPS.
And finally, the Stylus 1050SW powers off the instant you close the sliding cover since there’s no lens to retract. In terms of performance, the Olympus Stylus 1050SW is average – not too sluggish but not blazing fast either; save for the crummy full-resolution burst mode. Expect to take casual snapshots in bright light with the camera, and if you’re planning to shoot in low-light, you may want to use the LED light to help focusing.
Image Quality
Let’s find out how the Olympus Stylus 1050SW performs in the image quality department::
At the lower range of ISO settings, 80 to 200, the Stylus 1050SW produces fairly good image quality. Give ISO a bump to 400 and you’ll start seeing some noise, which is more noticeable than on competing cameras.
Noise gets worse at ISO 800, and we start seeing some noise reduction coming into play as well, softening details. ISO 1600 only amplifies the same issue so I’d advice against using anything above ISO 800.
On the positive note, there wasn’t an excessive amount of lens distortion or vignetting by the camera. Chromatic aberration (color fringing) was noticeable in some photos. Redeye does appear in photos most of the time, but you can remove it manually via the tool in playback mode. The Olympus Stylus 1050SW does take fairly decent photos up to ISO 400 but doesn’t perform as well as other “ordinary” cameras with worse noise levels.
Photo gallery
Hey, why not check out some full-sized photos in the Olympus Stylus 1050SW photo gallery!
Playback
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW has a nice (though not fancy) playback mode which is shared by some of its Olympus siblings as well. There’s print marking, slideshow, image cropping, resizing and rotation. Photos can be magnified by 10X so you can inspect the little details in them.
Pictures can be played back as individual photos, by date in calendar view or in sets of 4, 9, 16 or 25 thumbnails. You can also choose to tag photos as “My Favorites” and play them back directly via the favorites spot on the camera mode dial. For those looking to do some simple editing in the camera, you can use the red-eye and lighting fix functions, edit saturation or turn your pictures into sepia or black and white ones.
The Olympus Stylus 1050SW shows you plenty of information about your photos: shooting details, exposure information (with shutter speed and aperture value) and a histogram are all available to you.
Conclusion
The waterproof, drop proof and freezeproof Olympus Stylus 1050SW is a decent addition to Olympus’ rugged line of cameras. Over its siblings, the Stylus 1050SW actually offers nothing out of the blue (besides Tap Control), revolutionary or different… instead, it takes a little bit, here and there from the present Stylus SW cameras, and mixes them into a single compact camera with a sliding lens cover.
The 10 megapixel Stylus 1050SW has a usable 2.7 inch LCD but a very run-of-the-mill 3X zoom lens without image stabilization. The camera features other useful features, besides its rugged body design, such as an LED illuminator, various tools which come in handy when taking pictures (such as Shadow Adjustment and Perfect Shot Preview) and Tap Control; which is more useful than it sounds, considering the camera’s tiny and cluttered button arrangement.
However, also like the other Stylus SW cameras, the 1050SW lacks manual controls and a capable burst mode. The camera doesn’t fair well in terms of battery life and image quality either. If you’re a clumsy or adventurous person looking to own a camera which can take a good amount of beating, then the Olympus Stylus 1050SW is worth consideration. Otherwise, I’d pass and consider other cameras instead which are better (Especially in the image quality department)
What’s hot:
- Rugged design: waterproof, drop proof and freezeproof
- LED illuminator is useful for macros/in low-light
- Tap Control is useful
- Usable/viewable LCD screen
- Perfect Shot Preview, Shadow Adjustment and playback edit tools
- Decent image quality below ISO 400
What’s not:
- No manual controls
- Lacks optical image stabilization
- Tiny, cluttered buttons on the back
- Below average battery life
- Poor low-light performance; no long exposure mode
- Paltry frame rate for burst mode
Recommended Accessories:
- 2 GB xD-Picture card