Olympus SP-500 UZ

Opinion: Best value for a 10X optical, not only does it have a bright display but many can't
justify paying 499 when this is 379

Opinion: I´ve been testing this camera for a month now and all I can say is that daylight pictures are ok, but lowlight situations such as weddings, parties, in house, this camera doesn´t perform well. Almost al pictures in lowlight are out of focus, at different degrees, no matter what method for focusing I try. Manual ,Auto, Full auto, Spot, any. Auto-focusing is too slow and most of times wrong. Pictures are way too noisy. I took my Uzi C2100 and the SP-500 UZ to a wedding andthe UZI s pictures were way better to the point I stopped using the SP-500 UZ because my 2 Mpixel camera was much much faster and better. And in focus. And it doesn´t have to do with the lack of anti-shake on the SP-500.

Camera starts really fast. 10x zoom fast! Camera easy to use, handle and very light. Flash is ok. A lot of features.

Opinion: Only had this little beast for a few days now, but we shot all weekend with it. As an E-1 owner for over a year, I've been looking for something compact for a while now and opted for the "UZ"... but whats in a name? Actually I bought this for my girlfriend to get her up and running (away) from her Kodak point&shoot. The included basic manual leaves plenty to the imagination, but its fairly user friendly menus are easy enough for an experienced digital geek or OLY user, not necessarily so for beginners however.

One obvious fault compared to the competition is the lack of IS. Some have complained of low light focus issues, interestingly this is the one thing that impressed me most right out of the box this weekend. Go figure... I couldn't give it a 5 on features due to lack of IS, but a full array of manual controls (somewhat difficult to stumble through on first use) rates otherwise highly. All in all its a feature packed little wonder that takes some tweaking of the in-camera options for acceptable results. I expect to get even better results after some time with it. Capturing sharper detail is really only going to ocurr with a digital SLR, so I do consider OLY has a winner here, and for the segment I give it a "Recommended".

Opinion: Excellent~~