Olympus SP-565UZ

Opinion: Easy to learn and operate. good image quality, especially at 64 and 100 ISO. 200 and 400 are decent, and 800 is also decent for small prints. Solidly built, and logical menus. 26mm wide angle is awesome - there is a touch of distortion at full wide angle, but not a problem for nature and landscape photography. Small and compact, and excellent electronic viewfinder. Lots of options and customization.

Opinion: Nice camera at an incredible price! I've owned my 565 for about 6 months now and love it. I've own 2 other cameras, but this one has them beat.

Construction of the 565 is really good. It's one of the smallest 20x cameras out there making it easier to carry and store. Build is sturdy, strong and comfortable.

Features are too many to mention here. Has full auto to full manual. P setting is what I use the most, allowing for auto setting and manual setting at the same time, such as auto focusing, but manual shutter or ISO control. Most impressive feature of all is the very wide to super zoom, 26-520mm equivalent. A negative is the video recording features aren't great. You can chose to have sound, but no ability to zoom OR to be able to zoom in and out, but then have no sound. And you can't switch modes on the fly. No HD recordings either. However, I didn't but it for video recording, but the awesome zoom and other photography features.

Images are good. I've had almost no photos, even when taken in a moving car on a bumpy road turn out poorly with the cameras image stabilizing capabilities. Images are clear, true to color, and consistent. What keeps it from getting a perfect 5 here is, the photos tend to be slightly dull. A bit more contrast and brightness is desired. A plus is the 565 allows you to save images in JEP and RAW formats at the same time, so future editing can be done with minimal quality loss.

Ease of use very good given so many features one can chose from. With full auto, it's a no brainer, just point and shoot. But if you want to play with all the features available, it takes some getting use to, but once you do, it's not that hard even for a relatively new photographer.

I got it on sale for about $230 including shipping and taxes end of summer 2009. That's about $100-200 less than most the competitors with 20x zoom. So for the features and quality of images I've gotten for the price, nothing compares. Outstanding value!

Opinion: Poor AF, most of the frames are not in focus at all. Sometimes there is NO ANY focused point in the whole frame though the shooting conditions were pretty well. I've tried all AF methods available in the camera but without any significant improvement.
Noise floor is too high and many distortions can be observed even at ISO200.
The ratio of good shots to the total shots done at indoor is ~1/30, while outdoor ratio is ~5/30.

Opinion: This is the 3rd camera in this Olympus series that I have purchased and overall I am pleased. The 20x zoom is incredible and with the image stabilization (not on my previous models) it is even easier to get clear pictures at the long telephoto position. It also overcomes one of the weaknesses of previous models in that it has a wide angle position. The 10 megapixels is also great and can allow you to crop out even smaller portions of an image and still print it in high quality.

I generally use the P mode which uses the auto focus and handles most settings automatically, but allows you to set things such as ISO, exposure compensation, flash, etc. The scene mode can also be useful if you want settings specially designed for, say, a sunset. Thankfully, unlike the previous model, if you use this mode, it maintains the same photo jpeg quality that you are using without requiring you to manually set that every time.

I find this camera to be a nice middle ground between a small point and shoot vs. a large and bulky SLR. I like to use it for travel photography and I do not want to lug around too much equipment. Abeit bulky in the pocket, I can get it into some, which is often useful if I am walking around the city and do not want a camera bag hanging around my neck. If I need it, the 1.7x telephoto lens from my previous model still works.

Opinion: nice cam.. worth buying....

Opinion: bad AF- very often wrong , lens good -but with small Sensor this means nothing - junk

Opinion: I have shot several Hundred images with the Olympus SP-565UZ over several months. My one complaint is Each and Every photo needs a Post Shooting ~ Tweak of some sort. I use the Un Sharp 95 % of the time, due to lack of sharpness. I must also up the contrast. I would have expected a much sharper lens. It could just be MY camers lense, and I got a Limon?. OR NOT?

Opinion: Just bought oly SP565-UZ and it's a great camera. Very easy to use, good quaiity of pictures, very compact. I use to be a fan of Canon but I'm find with oly.It's smaller than the others with a 20x zoom.