Digital Trends

Olympus Stylus 750 November 5th, 2006 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

The Stylus 750 is an attractive credit card-sized camera with an all-metal case. It has a swooping curve on the face plate. Along with the Olympus logo and Stylus 750 on the front, there a few too many embossed items such as “7.1 Megapixel,” “All Weather” and “5x Optical Zoom.” Olympus should lose them and then they’d have a really sophisticated-looking camera. The camera really is credit-card sized, measuring 3.7 x 2.1 x .9 (WHD, in inches). It weighs 4.2 ounces without battery and xD Picture card, 4.8 with both items. Popping this one into a pocket is as convenient as carrying a cell phone. The 5x optical zoom with built-in lens cover dominates the front; the lens is equivalent to 36-180mm, a very nice range, and much better than most cameras this size. For the record, Kodak has the 7.1MP V705 ($349), a slim digicam with 5x optical zoom and a 23mm lens but it doesn’t have mechanical IS, just electronic. Beyond the flash and mic, there’s not much else to comment upon other than the fact there’s no AF Assist lamp, an important tool for shooting in low light.

The top of the camera only has three buttons: power, image stabilization on/off and a rectangular shutter button. The right side has a compartment with a USB out port; cables are supplied to transfer images to the PC and TV. There’s nothing on the left while the bottom has a tripod mount and compartment for the battery and xD Picture Card.

The rear of the Stylus is dominated by a 2.5-inch LCD rated a solid 215K pixels—if Olympus used this one on the SP-510UZ, our rating wouldn’t have been as dismissive. But they didn’t and life goes on. To the right of the LCD monitor is a wide/tele toggle switch, a mode dial and a four-way controller with center OK/Function key. Next to the four points of the controller are four more buttons for Menu, Quick View/Printing, Delete and Display to bring up grid lines or eliminate any of the clutter onscreen.

The mode dial has only five settings: Camera, Playback, Scene, Guide and Movie. Camera lets you shoot in Auto or P for program. In Auto, the camera is a typical point-and-shoot. When you enter “P,” you can adjust white balance, exposure compensation, ISO (up to 1600 maximum), burst mode and type of metering (ESP or spot). And that’s as far as it goes. No aperture or shutter priority, manual focus and so on. This is really an aim it and forget it camera. There’s nothing wrong with that, just be aware.

Move into the Scene mode and there are 23 options for everything from portraits to underwater (you’ll need an optional housing for that); this is a weather-resistant digicam, not waterproof. Guide offers 13 options such as “Reducing blur,” “Reducing red-eye” and other basic instructions. If you want to reduce red-eye, just choose that guide, hit the right controller and the camera will be put in the red-eye reduction mode. This is very helpful for beginners. People who know their way around cameras would just hit the flash option on the controller and pick the one they want. We’re all for making life easy for photographers of all levels so this is a good feature.

The camera lets you grab video clips at up to 640 x 480 pixel resolution but only 15 frames per second, unlike the 30 on many other digicams, a definite negative. However, this digicam or any other is a mere shadow of a Mini DV camcorder.

The Stylus 750 has a good kit. In the box you’ll find the camera, USB and A/V cables, battery/charger and a CD ROM holding Olympus Master software for editing and image transfer. Unlike the SP-510UZ, this camera comes with an 80-page owner’s manual that you can take with to learn the camera’s finer points. As noted, the Stylus 750 uses the xD Picture Card so budget another $35 for a 512MB card. After unpacking the box and charging the battery, it was time to take some photos.

Image Courtesy of Olympus