Olympus Stylus 800 (Mju 800) Digital Review
Simon Joinson, October 2005

Review based on a production Olympus μ DIGITAL 800

Olympus unveiled its first 8MP compact, the µ Digital 800 / Stylus 800 Digital, back in May 2005. As well as offering one of the highest pixel counts in its class the Stylus 800 is 'weatherproof' and uses a unique technology, 'Bright Capture', to boost sensitivity immensely (up to ISO 2500 in some modes), ensuring a bright screen image and blur-free non-flash photography in very low light. Otherwise specification is fairly standard for this type of camera. The camera is known as the Stylus 800 Digital in the US, and the µ ('Mju') DIGITAL 800 in Europe and SE Asia, so you can have a camera with a silly name wherever you live in the world. We'll use the Stylus 800 name in this review mainly because it's easier typing that than trying to remember the key combination for µ.

• 8.0 million pixels
• Weatherproof metal body with glossy surface in dark blue or silver
• Bright 3x zoom lens (38-114mm equivalent), 1:2.8-4.9
• Bright Capture Technology for superior performance under low light conditions
• Extra-large 6.4cm HyperCrystal LCD (160° horizontal and vertical viewing angles)
• 19 Scene Programs plus Program Auto, Aperture priority and Shutter priority
• Blur protection to guard against the effects of camera shake
• High-speed sequential shooting
• Movie function with sound (in VGA quality)
• Macro and Super Macro shooting (from as close as 3cm in Super Macro mode)
• TruePic TURBO image processor
• Calendar function
• PictBridge compatible

* weatherproof equivalent to the IEC standard publication 529 IPX4

Olympus Stylus 800 (μ 800) Key specifications

* Supplied accessories may differ in each country or area

If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help you understand some of the terms used).

Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the reviewer, you should read the ENTIRE review before coming to your own conclusions. Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (typically VGA) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C.

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