If you've been a regular visitor at Tech2, you must have noticed the terrible reviews that the two budget Olympus digicams—the FE-170 and FE-180 have received from us. Now I know for a fact that Olympus is more than capable of producing some great digital cameras, so I assume they just faltered with the budget FE series. So clearing my mind of all doubt and keeping an open perspective, I take on the task of reviewing Olympus' new 7.1 megapixel superzoom model—the SP-510 UZ. How does it fare? Read on to find out.
Build
I really liked the size and the build of the Olympus SP-510 UZ. It's smaller than your average superzoom and fits perfectly in an average sized adult-hands. The plastic body is sturdy enough for tough use and sports a rubber grip to avoid any slip-n-fall kind of accidents.
The front of the camera is overwhelmed by the SP-510 UZ's colossal retractable lens. The flash is almost completely hidden and pops only out when needed.
The large 2.5 inch 115,000 pixel LCD screen takes up most of the back section with the essential functionality-related buttons on the right-hand side. As in most superzooms you also have an electronic view-finder for times when the sunlight makes it impossible to see anything on the LCD.
On the top you have the mode selection jog dial along with the power butting and the zoom. There's also a button for turning on the image stabilization but more on tht functionality in a bit.
Overall the camera build makes it easy for single handed operation, which can be very useful under certain circumstances. The only thing I didn't like about its looks was its shiny silver finish, which I personally don't like much on a superzoom. But, no points deducted for that, as its only a personal preference and there are no real faults on the silver finish.
Its looking good and i think it will be very useful aslo.
