Olympus Stylus 1030 SW

Opinion: FAILED in salt water. I had two 1030SW for sea kayaking and both failed after a couple of months. One just leaked a bit and was repaired under warranty and consequently flooded beyond repair (replaced under warranty with Though 8000), the othe rone leaked and was repaired and now corroding badly. The original 720SW was way better it lasted me for about 3 years, the laekd a bit but still usable on land.
Image quality of at wide angle, poor at zoom in.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND the 1030SW.
More details on a long term test of my Olypus cameras at: http://gnarlydognews.blogspot.com/2009/11/compact-waterproof-cameras-long-term.html

Opinion: If you want a camera that can make it through any situation hen this is your camera. This camera is kid proof, my son uses it all the time and it hasn't failed us yet. This was my second in the line now renamed to "tough". I haven't had one fail yet. This is an excellent outdoor camera, in doors due to its tiny sensor and poor flash it can be a challenge. That wasn't what it was made for though :)

Opinion: Overall great little camera if used for what it was
designed for.

I've had this one for a bit now and it has been a great little companion for getting into tight spots and coming
out with a perfectly usable foto.

Underwater is fine, I keep mine lubed up with a high
quality silicone lubricant and you will find it aids the
watertightness of the system.

I find the 5mp resolution to be the least noisy, best
results so far has been to force the camera to an ISO
of 80 and then work the stops so that you are always
shooting at -0.3 to -0.7 and then manipulate the
image in photoshop after. 10mp is exceptional on the
macro function.

Opinion: DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA. For a "tough" camera, it's failed too often.

Add to that the proprietary storage chip and proprietary USB cable and it's a real pain.

Opinion: WARNING FOR all OLYMPUS "Tough" Camera's

Olympus only does warranty for 12 months following purchase of camera. Even if

after that time issues arise which are related to manufacturer defect. "waterproof",

"tough" and "shockproof" should be taken in context of use for 12 months.

I received an estimate of $135 + $25 shipping (from manufacturer) to repair water

leaking into the frame of a 18 month old $400 camera. It is noted on my repair

form that this camera is not scratched, dented or shown any signs of misuse, other

than water damage to the LCD screen, fogged flash, and water inside camera. My

lesson on this is unfortunately not to purchase perceived quality and instead buy

cheap and re-purchase often.

Opinion: 1030 SW is nicely build and looks ok but I can't stop to think that the image quality is below par. I still have my Canon PowerShot A510 and I always though that images are not so great because it is an old camera. Wrong! Turns out that the camera from 2005 is in fact better then the one from 2009.

One shouldn't hold 1030 SW with both hands because the left one will cover the lens. The menu is a bit confuzing but easy to pick up.

However I see build quality very good and for theat the price is justified

Opinion: I purchased this camera because I was tired of having to replace cameras due to mechanical failures, and I thought it would be fun to take pictures of the family on the beach.
The build quality and ease of use are good as has been the water resistance.
I have however been dissapointed with the image qualiy which, in my opinion, is worse than several other digital point and shoot cameras I have owned previously.

Opinion: I recently bought an Olympus 1030SW for a 10 day snorkeling trip to Aruba. It seemed to be the only half-way decent compact waterproof camera available, especially compared to the Pentax cameras. User reviews here were mixed, but I decided to take a chance, buy one and
sell it on craigslist if I didn't like the results. It was certainly cheaper than opting for using disposable film cameras and processing!

The size and build are very good for an inexpensive camera like this. It fits nicely in one hand, which is extremely helpful when swimming and diving. The surface is a bit too smooth for swimming, though. A rubberized fascia would have been a nice detail.

The Oly takes pretty good photos, very good in full sunlight, but quite noisy in low light. Using higher ISOs makes it worse. I tried to keep it at 80 or 100.

The flash is very hot, so I shut it off whenever I could. I want to try making a diffuser for the flash, since other reviewers mentioned it was a good fix for the flash. I generally prefer available light photos, anyway.

The equivalent 28mm wide angle is nice, but photos seem to have a slightly darker unfocused cast to them round the edges.

The interface is okay. It feels a bit like a hybrid between Nikon CoolPix and Canon PowerShot SD, which I use regularly. Everything is fairly easy to find. There's a handy guide built-in, too. HOWEVER, It does NOT remember settings when you shut it off, so you need to reset a few
things before shooting again. While swimming, it's a minor annoyance.

At 10MP, photos are strangely soft and hazy... even in full Aruban sunlight!
Shooting at 5MP, they’re much better. Macro shooting is very good and really the only time where the 10MP setting is excellent.

Tweaking pictures in Photoshop with the FixerBundle FocusFixer and NoiseFixer v2 filters clears a lot of the problems up, though it's time consuming.

Several reviewers complained about battery life. Since there's no auto-shutoff or sleep feature, it's important to plan when to turn it on, then shut it off ASAP. I had no trouble regularly shooting a couple hundred photos a day with no recharge. This included snorkeling every day
for 4 hours or more (2 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon) and shooting around 100 photos each time.

Some reviewers complained about blown seals and water leakage. I took that into account, read and followed the instructions carefully. I made sure that the rubber seals of the battery/memory card doors had NO dust, hairs or sand on them. I carefully flushed the camera in clear
fresh water after using it and allowed it to completely dry for several hours before pulling out the memory card and battery for recharging. I use an
ExpressCard/34 card reader with my MacBook Pro, BTW. USB doesn't cut it.

Shooting underwater is great fun! The results I got, even 15 to 20 feet down shooting under rocks and through vegetation were pretty satisfying. One trick I discovered was to swim straight down and shoot upside
down, I was less likely to float up and had a few extra seconds to compose a picture.

This camera is far from perfect. You're really paying for the underwater capabilities of a lower quality camera. Like any tool, it takes some time to get used to the pros and cons, but after a few days of trial and error, I was able to get some very good photos with it. For a take
anywhere-even-underwater camera, it's really a lot of fun! Besides, you can SHOW people the octopus you met face to face!

Opinion: Purchased the camera for the weatherproof and
durability features which I still think are awesome. I
wanted to be able to take the camera out in the rainy
weather to take action pictures. However the 1030sw
does a poor job in low light conditions with action, the
flash doesn't do much good because it washes out the
colors and only helps close up.