Olympus SP-560 Sports Mode

Here are some samples of my shots using the Sports mode of the Olympus SP-560. I would say that these shots come close to the shots using my Canon 350D (DSLR).

Let me know what you think.

I really like them.

There is no open-air viewing gallery at Auckland Airport, so through glass, this is the best I could do on the SP-550:



It comes from here:

http://www.pbase.com/hfalkner/henry37

Henry

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Henry Falkner - C-750UZ, Stylus 800, SP-550UZ http://www.pbase.com/hfalkner

Not bad at all! From these, I take it you had no real issues with speed of focus, or the ability to lock focus on a moving target ? If these are straigh out-of-the camera JPEGS then thats very encouraging news. Thanks for posting.

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AH

photophile said:

Not bad at all! From these, I take it you had no real issues with
speed of focus, or the ability to lock focus on a moving target ? If
these are straigh out-of-the camera JPEGS then thats very encouraging
news. Thanks for posting.

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Click to expand...

I did some post processing on these shots, mainly cropping and adding some contrast. But still, it would not come out this good if the original shot is blurry. It came out very sharp in the original shot.

The Sports Mode really works for this camera. A very nice feature! The more I am convinced that this is an excellent alternate to my DSLR camera.

SP-560 over the previous 550. That is good!
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Good shooting...

Ben

i m glade that you enjoy your sp 560, could you help me i m hesitating between olympus sp 560 and canon s5is. could tell me if in the mode video you can combine zoom and sound. If yes, can you do a zoom manually, with your hands in video mode. do you have a nice result.

hi congratulation nice shot, can you help me i hesitate between canon s5is and olympus sp 560. In video mode could you combine zoom and sound. if yes could you use optical zoom handly, do you have a qhuite good result? thanks in advence

jamelazzouni said:

hi congratulation nice shot, can you help me i hesitate between canon
s5is and olympus sp 560. In video mode could you combine zoom and
sound. if yes could you use optical zoom handly, do you have a qhuite
good result? thanks in advence

Click to expand...

no access to Google from your computer?

I searched for "560 uz review" and found the review at Steves Digicams, this it what it says:

"Movie mode lets you capture SHQ (640x480, 30fps), HQ (320x240, 15fps) or SQ (160x120, 15fps) resolution motion video with sound. The length of a movie is limited only by the available memory. If the movie is recorded with sound (enabled via the Rec. Menu), the optical zoom may not be used during recording. However, you can preset the desired focal length before starting to record a movie".
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/olympus_sp560_pg3.html

René

With the SP560 you can either zoom or have sound. Not both.
I think also IS and sound are not compatible.

I guess this design decision was made because the zoom (and IS) make camera noises that would interfere with the sound recorded by the tiny microphone anyway. Or maybe there is another reason.

So you must consider beforehand and choose zoom or sound. If sound, then choose your focal length before starting the movie. I think the manual says that digital zoom is possible, but then you must enable it of course (as default option for pictures, I disable digital zoom).

(...And don't forget to reset later :
I took a couple of movieclips at a concert recently.
First one was with sound : you can recognize the song but don't expect more...
After that I wanted to zoom on the singer so I turned off sound.

Forgot to put it back on again, so the next clips (although not zoomed) were also without sound).

Another good thing : the SP-560 has a silent mode. Good idea (at concerts etc) when you notice those around you would be annoyed by constant beeping.
Roel

Apart from the review snipper, you can look to my post above for some hands-on experience.

Actually, the movie quality shot in the concert I mentioned, was not bad at all (even for low light).
Roel