Images from my new mju 810

[rovingtim]

This first one is pretty much the best the super macro can do. It isn't the best macro I've seen, but I think the image is nice. This is straight from the camera with no adjustment at all.



This is a 100% crop.



This is ambient light at 800 iso. Again, straight from the camera with no adjustment or noise reduction.



100% crop. The blurriness is mainly camera shake. I was holding the camera at arms length.

 

[Beacon]

This is ambient light at 800 iso. Again, straight from the camera
with no adjustment or noise reduction.

That's not a bad noise profile for ISO 800.

I'm inclined to think my little pocket canon has more noise than that at ISO 400.

How is it at 1600 and 3200? I'm assuming it gets pretty severe by 3200?

Phil's specs sheet says ISO 800-3200 are available with 'limitations'. Do you know what these limitations are?

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[Henry Falkner]

I am glad the Stylus 810 works for you. Clearly you don't have to battle with excessive sharpening followed by excessive noise reduction. On my Stylus 800 I use SHQ all the time to minimise these, although I do believe that the firmware upgrades I have done are helping as well.

A couple of years ago you could not get this quality on a pro-sumer (C-2500L to be precise).

Henry

--
Henry Falkner - C-40, C-750UZ, Stylus 800 http://www.pbase.com/hfalkner

 

[rovingtim]

there are no limitations except 3200 where the camera will only produce a 3mp image. However, that image is quite good for an 8mp point and shoot working at 3200 iso.

This is one of my early test shots. I'm afraid there is motion blur as it was much darker than it looks in the picture and I hadn't learned the camera's shutter release pattern yet.



Here is a 100% crop. You can see the motion blur in the highlights in her eyes. However, it is a good indication of noise.



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http://photobucket.com/albums/y116/TGooding/

 

[Henry Falkner]

Much of this can be counteracted by NeatImage, followed by a judicious amount of Unsharp Masking, for which I use Photoshop Elements 2. The sharpening in Neat Image does not do a lot.

Henry

--
Henry Falkner - C-40, C-750UZ, Stylus 800 http://www.pbase.com/hfalkner

 

[Ben Herrmann]

I take it that you go by "Tim?" If not, sorry about that. I mean to ask you about the 810. Some reviews have indicated that both the Stylus 710 and 810 have too much jpg compression and thus more jaggies. Have you experienced this? I'd never shoot below a SHQ jpg level so I would assume that the images would be fairly nice. Just curious.

If you could post a few more pics, that would be nice also. The flower shot was really nice. I am considering this camera as it is a true pocket camera (slim?) - but I am a little leery about the overall image quality (I usually almost always shoot in RAW with most of my cameras).

Thanks...
--
Have a great day!

Ben

 

[Origami Dee]

Tim, your flower macro is quite lovely and very impressive considering so many digital point and shoot cameras render flower macros ridiculously oversaturated!!

I, too, have been betwixt and between the Stylus 710 and Stylus 810.

As Henry pointed out, Olympus has resolved some of the compression and noise issues on the 810 that plagued the Stylus 800's image. And the Stylus 810 has a faster lens as well.

But for some confounding reason, Olympus has only authorized Best Buy to sell the Stylus 810. I detest having no purchasing choices other than a big box store with artifically inflated prices.

Is the Stylus 810 worth the extra $100 cost? Or the Stylus 710 worth the added $100 savings? Perhaps this review will help:

Dorothy

 

[Ben Herrmann]

I looked everywhere on line - assuming at the last that places like B&H, Adorama, 17th Street Photo, or BuyDig would have it in stock. No dice, and then by chance I discovered that bestbuy.com had them for only $339.00 USD. Good lord...what happened with this stroke of marketing genius? At least if I want one I have several Best Buy stores in the area.
--
Have a great day!

Ben

 

[rube39]

Henry,

I too have the 800, which at the moment I mainly use as my 'foul weather camera' . Since it is the rainy season here in Western Japan, that means a lot > grin

Could I ask you how to upgrade the firmware for the 800. I have tried to find info on the web, but no joy.

Thanks,

Rube

 

[Henry Falkner]

http://www.olympus.co.jp/en/support/imsg/digicamera/download/software/#firmware

The Stylus 800 is the fifth last in the firmware list.

Please note:

1) You need to install Olympus Master, which gives you the link for the upgrade. The upgrade is done from the server, no executable is downloaded to your computer. This is different from some earlier models.

2) They DON'T promise to reduce the excessive processing. It is just my opinion that this is what they have done. Nobody here has yet seconded my opinion.

I have just done some 100% crops from my recent Stylus 800 pictures, which were taken at SHQ. Looking at them at screen size, I can't see the fuzzy edges that my Stylus 800 produced straight out of the box. But they still have a little more sharpening when compared against the 810 samples posted here.

3) I have upgraded to firmware V1.1, then to V1.2, both of which worked. But Olympus tells you, you can't go back if you are not happy, at least not without a service.

Keep in mind, according to this thread the 810 gives you 8 Mp resolution at 1600 ISO, but has no shutter priority. It comes down to the frequency at which you are prepared to upgrade.

To post my new samples I need more time. I will do that if you ask me to do so. In the mean time, my Stylus galleries start in July 2005 at the link in the footer. They are interspersed with C-750 galleries.

Henry

--
Henry Falkner - C-40, C-750UZ, Stylus 800 http://www.pbase.com/hfalkner

 

[rube39]

Henry,

Thank you very much for the detailed explaination.
Will seach for my Olympus Master CD and get right on it.

Rube

 

[rube39]

I give up.

1. hadd the Olympus Master on one computer, fill out the info, attempted to send in the registration, opened the OM software, connected the 800 via usb (the camera turned on as the lcd light up to the usb screen). When I went to 'update the camera' the server would not recognize the camera, ask to 'retry.' No luck.

2. did the same thing on a different Mac, with an other version of the OM (I also have a C-70zoom) but the same thing happened. When trying to upgrade the software and/or register, was asked to supply loscense number, which is appartenty not the same number as the CD serial number, as they ask for less digits. No luck again.

I give up.

Rube

 

[Henry Falkner]

I give up.

1. hadd the Olympus Master on one computer, fill out the info,
attempted to send in the registration,

The serial number that the registration asks for is the one on the bottom of the camera body.

opened the OM software,
connected the 800 via usb (the camera turned on as the lcd light up
to the usb screen).

Did you press the 'OK' button when 'PC' was highlighted on the LCD?

When I went to 'update the camera' the server
would not recognize the camera, ask to 'retry.' No luck.

2. did the same thing on a different Mac, with an other version of
the OM (I also have a C-70zoom) but the same thing happened. When
trying to upgrade the software and/or register, was asked to supply
license number....

Again, they are asking for the serial number on the camera bottom, and you have to press 'OK' when the LCD lights up with the 'PC' option highlighted yellow.

The registration process does seem to have been written by a fairly paranoid person, I agree.

Hope that helps. Although I have the upgrade, I went through the whole process again, right up where they tell me what firmware upgrade is available. The good thing is, they only offer you the upgrade when they are sure you have the right camera connected.

Henry

--
Henry Falkner - C-40, C-750UZ, Stylus 800 http://www.pbase.com/hfalkner

 

[rovingtim]

I believe it is partly your fault that I own a C7070.

I had an F11 for a short time but didn't like the ergonomics and the LCD screen surely left something to be desired. I did like the picture clarity, though. When I was hunting for my first point and shoot in twenty years, one of my references was the resolution test of the F10/F11. (by the way, the 810 is smaller than the f11) The oly 800 was one of the few that beat it, but the compression artifacts were unfortunate. Also, I found some blurring due to noise reduction even at the lowest ISO's. I very badly wanted to want the 800, because it felt like a quality piece of equipment, but I was frustrated by what oly had done to the image mainly through compression. Of all the stupid things ...

Anyway, I had read some reviews of the 810 and they all said the same thing; artifacts and noise everywhere. So I was shocked when I downloaded full size images from Steve's digicams review and saw neither. In fact, the high iso blew me away. I makes me think Oly has finally cracked this little problem which bodes very very well for the next E whatever.

Here are some othe images I have already posted from the 810.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=18678314
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=18678601

I will post some more shortly. However, I usually use the 810 for snaps, because when I get serious I haul out the E1. But the 810 has much better control layout than the F11 (but it doesn't has S or A priority). It is much easier to grab and snap and get useable pictures, but it operates a step slower on just about everything is does, unless you set it up for sequential shooting. In good light you get over 5 fps (at 3 mp). Now that rocks.

To me the 810 is an ergonomic marvel. I have never handled such a well designed pocket cam (for me). I really do think Oly fired some accountants and hired back some engineers. I really really like this camera.

Cheers,

tim

 

[rovingtim]

These are all straight out of the camera with no processing at all. I have tried sharpening and it does work (you can try it on the 100 crops)



This is from near the middle so the detail is excellent. You can see the roof tiles on the far roof which is pretty good for a point and shoot.



My one real disappointment with this camera is the lens is not sharp edge to edge. I sent one camera back because one edge was horribly out of focus. Even though this camera is much better, the corners are still a bit soft. However, I did a little research and all the manufactures I checked except except Panasonic exibit the same softness. This crop is from the bottom right corner.

 

[rovingtim]

This is a detailed low light shot. This is moving people at a distance and probably the hardest thing for a camera to render convincingly. The crop doesn't look great, but I still think it is astonishingly good for a 8 mp small sensor/small lens camera at 1000 iso (it was on automatic). The problem with using lower ISO is that if there is too much shake, the camera simply tells you it can't correct instead of at least trying. So you are stuck with noisy high iso shots to begin with.

The first image is as taken by the camera. The 810 tags the image so that if you want to administer image stabilisation, you apply it in-camera and it makes another file, leaving the original intact. (It works the same way with b/w, saturation, brightness, cropping ... its a mini photoshop in-camera)

Orignal



After stabilistion (it looks a little better here)



100% before



100% after As you can see, the file is a bit butchered. However, it might print up okay. I haven't tried prints yet.

 

[rovingtim]

Useable pocket 3200. Okay, so its not a 5D. If you want commercial quality 3200 iso prints then you will need more than £200. If you want useable 4.5X6 prints, then look no further.

The crops are 100% but they aren't as detailed because 3200 is only 3 mp (the same resolution as my first digital camera). These images contain some camera shake as I am not yet fully familiar with this camera. (every camera has its own trick to getting clear shots)

 

[rovingtim]

This one shows you what it can do in good light.



This is 1000 iso with me messing with the white balance in-camera. I think I could have done better. It doesn't have fine adjustment (it only has six adjustments), but one can usually get close if the auto white balance is messing up.

 

[rube39]

Henry,

Thanks again.

It took some time, and 2 computers, but thanks to your advice I finally did manage to upgrade the firmware on the 800.

Rube

 

[rovingtim]

This was taken in the same lighting and have had the levels tweaked (the ends brought together) and a little sharpening applied.

810



This is a crop from the 810 picture above. I made some more adjustments trying to match the E1 photo as best I could. Mainly, I upped the saturation a little.



This is the E1 with the 50-200 lens uncropped.