Design
There’s no question that this is a nice looking camera. It has a very polished finish and is about as big as I expected it to be. The actual build of the camera is very solid – a combination of metal casing with rubber grips – it’s well put together with zero flex or creaks when pressure is applied. There’s a convenient ledge coming out of the camera on the top right (for your thumb), which coupled with the general ergonomics and that great rubber grip, makes carrying holding it extremely comfortable. It also makes it very easy to use one handed (although two hands are required for stability when shooting at a long telephoto). I actually spent the entire day carrying the camera around in my hand (I found the included strap to be oversized so didn’t have it slung over my shoulder), and I genuinely could not imagine it being more comfortable.

In terms of describing its size, it’s a slightly difficult one. It kinda sits in the middle and I hesitate to even call it a compact as it’s definitely too big to put in a pocket shirt or trouser pocket. I guess the correct terminology is that it’s a compact ultrazoom. When I sit and stare at it, it really is incredible they’ve fit such a gigantic focal range into such a small package. And although it won’t go into a pocket, because the lens retracts fully, it’s still dramatically smaller than any DSLR could ever be with a decent zoom. And as such, it’ll fit easily into a flat bag, small pouch or even jacket pocket.

Moving on, if you’re anything like me, the lens cap will annoy the hell out of you until you attach it using the included leash. When the camera turns on, the lens extends and pushes the cap off and out. I forgot about this about a dozen times (with each time the lens cap falling to the floor). After attaching it via the leash however, it’s a great feature. I much prefer the comfort fit that neatly slots it on compared to lens caps that required to be clipped on.

The LCD screen is decent. Resolution is good although like most screens I have seen, it looks significantly more washed out when in sunlight compared to a dimly lit room. This makes judging the quality of your exposure difficult sometimes, although a built histogram (available in real time also) helps that issue. There’s also an Electronic ViewFinder (EVF) capability which is easily accessible. This is kinda cool. Not something I thought I’d tend to use too often (due to its lower resolution and tiny eyepiece) but I’ve found it to be useful so far when the sun is too bright to view the LCD accurately. It also helps stabilize the camera when shooting telephoto shots as you can create a more secure base by pressing the camera in against your eye socket. A nice feature and a bit of a surprise to me.

Controls
I was very pleasantly surprised here. I’ve not used Olympus compacts before so can’t compare from experience but I thought the controls were natural and easily accessible. I shoot in aperture mode mostly and changing aperture / exposure or ISO was fast. I didn’t find myself missing analogue controls at all in this regard.

There was some mention I think in previews I saw of the dial on top (which switches modes) being too easy to turn. I haven’t found this at all. On that top mode dial, there are a number of options (Aperture / Manual / Shutter / Program / Scenes / etc). I typically will only use manual or aperture. I have not tried any of the scenes and doubt I will. The “Play” mode is useful though as it allows the camera to be turned on for image reviewing without extending the lens.

Aside from the usual controls, there are also dedicated buttons for IS (on / off), LCD to EVF, Power and Flash popup. The rest are clustered around the navigation controls and while similar to what you’ll see on other cameras. As I say, I found access to controls particularly easy.

One thing I didn’t like was how max aperture was managed when in aperture mode. The issue was that when you zoom to a telephoto length, the aperture obviously increases (e.g. from F/2.8 to F/4.5). Returning to a wide angle restores the F/2.8 setting you had –which is good. However, if you change the exposure at the long end (e.g. lets say you add +0.3 when at 500mm and F/4.5), then it thinks you reset the aperture to be at F/4.5 as well (as aperture and exposure are accessed via the same quick menu). So it doesn’t restore the aperture to F/2.8 when you return to wide angle again. This is an annoyance as it means I have keep an eye on the aperture settings. But that was the only gripe I had with the controls after using it for a half week. I’m impressed.

Performance and Timings
I did some basic timing using the camera. Startup time is not lightening but seems to be as per expected from an ultra zoom. From pressing the on button and seeing the lens zoom to 28mm equivalent to seeing the LCD screen show the current view is about 2.5 – 3 seconds.

A few people have asked about the amount of time it takes to zoom from 28mm to 504mm. I timed this at around the same – consistently between 2.5 to 3 seconds.

Both these timings are about the same as the recently tested Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8 on dpreview.com.

I don’t have a scientific way to accurately measure shutter lag but I would definitely place it on par with most compact cameras I’ve used. Obviously it feels (much) slower than a DSLR and as with almost all compacts, is something you have to learn to work with – or just accept it as a compromise given the benefits of portability.

Auto focus speed is another important aspect of performance and again and I don’t have a way of accurately measuring this. More to the point perhaps, I think that all AF timings can be misleading as in the real world, AF speed depends so significantly on external factors such as the availability of light, the type of subject (e.g. if it is of contrast, etc). What I can say with the SP-550 was that AF was noticeably slower on telephoto than at the wide end (as you’d expect) but for well lit subjects, was able to focus around or under a second. It slows dramatically as the ambient light is reduced and I won’t be surprised to see reports of people trying the camera in shops and reporting that AF was very slow at the long end. However, the point I would raise here is when do you really expect to be able to shoot at 504mm inside your house, in dimly lit conditions and get a good shot (irrespective of AF speed).

Thus, so far – timings were on par with what I’d expect.

This changes a bit when we talk about shot to shot speed. For high quality shots – it’s about what Olympus reports (a shot or so per second). However, there are some interesting drive modes though. You can set focus lock for shot to shot speed for example, and of course put it into the famed high speed mode. “Hi2” mode is the one that caused a stir and allows you to take 15 fps (for 20 frames) at 1.2MP. I did try this and it certainly behaves as reported (almost comical to hear the digital shutter sound at that frequency). I’m not sure what use I would find for this though. Perhaps more interesting is the “Hi1” mode which allows you to take 7fps (for 15 frames) at 3MP. 3MP is still a pretty decent size and it’s possible to put that speed into perspective by reminding that it’s almost on par with the frame rate and resolution of Nikon’s best dedicated sports shooting DSLR, the D2Hs (I am of course aware that the D2Xs is faster, high resolution and 10 times more expensive). It’s going to be interesting to see if I (and others) can make use of this feature in the field or whether it proves too much for the AF in real life situations.

Finally – a quick mention on power. The Olympus SP-550 takes four regular AA batteries. A complete set are delivered in the box with the camera (non rechargeable) and I’ve yet to exhaust them. The shutter count is 200 and counting so that gives you an idea of battery life so far – i.e. that it’s decent.

So to summarise this section – the Olympus SP-550 is a compact ultrazoom, and if you expect compact ultrazoom performance and limitations, you’re going to get roughly what you imagined. The added twists of the enhanced drive modes however are a pleasant surprise, so definitely a thumbs up in this section.

Previous – Part 1 – Introduction
Next – Part 3 – Image Quality