Olympus Stylus 720 SW (mju 720 SW Digital)

Opinion: Just purchased this camera a few days ago at Best Buy. Have not used it too much yet. Wanted a durable camera that I can stick in my pocket when going to Mets/Yankee games with my Boys, as well as use at their Soccer, and Baseball games, and not have to worry about weather conditions. Quality of the Camera seems great.

Opinion: The 720 SW was delivered 10 days ago from B&H, $399.99. I bought it for the waterproof feature but haven't dared to dunk it, yet. My current picture count is above 900 and I am absolutely blown away by quality, features and ease of use.

It slips into a shirt pocket, and starts up very quickly in the default P mode. One click takes it to the image stabilization mode. A second click re-opens the previous selection from among 25 scene modes, each of which flips to a second page with a lucid explanation that I can read well on the 2.5" screen, even without my customary reading glasses. I love the easy access picture viewer with something like a 10x zoom.
It seems to do "regular" shots (64-1600 ISO, up to SHQ 3 MB JPG, but not RAW) as expected for a 7 megapixel camera. I have no real measurement data. But here are two examples of absolutely stunning performance:
I recorded a MacUserGroup meeting (320x240 mode) on a 512 MB xD Picture Card and made that into a jaw-dropping 17 minute DVD. The clarity of audio and the visual quality are outstanding. I am looking forward to delivery of a 1 GB xD card for recording SHQ at 640x480. But there is also the option of just using SQ mode (160x120), ignoring the video and getting an hour's worth of superb voice recorder audio.
Secondly, photographing needles from a spruce tree in super-macro mode at ~10 cm distance, it revealed a sharp series of tiny white dots (rosin?, ~ 0.1 mm), a feature I had not observed before and could only discern with an 8x loupe. That would seem like a handy and renewable target for other amateurs to test a camera before purchase. Of course, when used as a quasi-microscope, it is a mite hard to hold the focus.

Hmm, I had imaged the remarkbly distinctive dots on needles from a standard Christmas tree spruce. Just tried it on a Norway Spruce and there weren't any. Also noticed that the default focal length on the super-macro setting is 9.1 mm (data per iViewMediaPro).

Overall: This is a superb camera to be a daily companion in all walks of life.

add-on June 18, 2006

I have since had a chance to go snorkeling and carried the camera in the ocean for an aggregate of about four hours. After use, I washed it, blotted it dry, sucked water from behind the lens cover using a plain tissue, and it is as good as new. I am not sure how it does it, but the material seems to shed water, like my watch. The underwater shots were terrific after using "Smart Fix" in Photoshop Elements 3 to remove a green cast.

I have also used the same camera to capture about 3 hours worth of movie "footage" that converted into some pretty darn nice party DVDs. The sound capture quality is absolutely incredible, even for movies under water.

In macro and super-macro modes it continues to be effective to capture great images of insects and flowers, provided one is aware of a rather shallow depth of field. That's just what happens with microscope optics, you've got to get the focus right!

For some reason, the camera is biased to use long exposures, different from my SP 500uz, D-40 or C-750uz. I strongly suspect that the poor imaging results reported by some people relate to camera shake. Also, spot metering brings pretty bad results in anything but close-ups.

My opinion remains very positive and I am looking foward to a couple more snorkeling trips to fully exercise the underwater capabilities. By the way, I found a neoprene iPod holder (made for cycling, it seems) that Velcro straps to my arm and is just perfect for accommodating the 720SW while keeping it tethered by a safety leash.

Opinion: This camera finally brought me over digtal "river stix". I purhased it from my local camera store at list because I think I owed it to them for all the time I took over the last 3 years just looking.

I can only echo the two previous review on general overall qualty. My specific comments follow:

ISO200 (color) is usable even a 9x6in without post processing noise reduction. With Noise Ninja 400 should also be more than adequate and even 800 acceptable. (just my judgement...others may dffer). My main use wll be for street shooting with the end result being printed as B&W.

My film work flow has been color neg scanned and converted to B&W for inkjet printing. My first pass with this camera is very promising. The in camera B&W conversion at 800 seems to mask the noise with noise looking more like the grain of ISO400 film pushed. Again post processing for noise wll only make things better.

One accessory i would recommend is the small "Sockt" draw string bag. These are made from micro-fiber to protect the LCD screen from being scratched in your pocket: it functions as well as no scratch cleaning cloth.

Opinion: I really liked the design and functionality of the camera. I spend a lot of time outdoors and having a waterproof camera was excellent. It is small enough to fit in a pocket, so I could take it with me wherever I wanted. I also didn't have to worry too much about my kids using it, since it was so rugged. I found it to be very comfortable to hold and use, and I loved the screen on it. Unfortunately, I found the picture quality to be very poor. This bad quality outweighed everything good about the camera. It was bad enough that I returned the camera, and would have been willing to do so even at a substantial loss. I would rather be without a camera than pay for a 7 MP camera that takes pictures that are this poor.