Digital Trends

I hate to keep saying it but the parade of ultra zoom digicams continues—at least it’s marching into my house via FedEx! Recently we tested the very good Panasonic DMC-FZ18, an 18x 8-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization. Olympus recently introduced an updated ultra zoom, the SP-560 UZ, also with a whopping 18x lens and 8MP resolution with sensor-shift stabilization. What both have in common is a very wide-angle setting; it’s 27mm on the Olympus versus 28mm for the FZ18. Although the pair is very close, they are much wider than the typical 35-38mm of other mega zooms such as those from Sony and Canon. The 8MP Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd--which we’ve asked for--also has an 18x zoom with a range of 27-486mm. Hey does this sound like a trend of more wide-angle digicams? As a matter of fact it is since we’ve learned other manufacturers will unveil them at the PMA convention at the end of January. While waiting for the S8000fd it was time to test the new Olympus. Here’s what we discovered…