Olympus unveils seven new compacts at CES

January 10, 2012 @ 8:30AM

Olympus unveils seven new compacts at CES

By Daniela Bowker

Olympus SP-720UZ

Obviously it's new camera-central around CES, and today it was Olympus' turn to unleash its newest offerings into the compact camera market. They've announced seven new cameras, from the ultrazoom to the ideal first camera. Without wanting to induce new kit fatigue, heres a quick rundown of what's on offer.

Lots of zoom

Topping the lineup are the cameras that Olympus hopes will take people from basic point-and-shoot to something a little more exciting. They're the SP-720UZ and the SP-620UZ. The SP-720 comes with a 26× optical zoom and a 14 megapixel CMOS sensor. The SP-620 comes with more megapixels, at 16, in a CCD sensor and its zoom range is slightly more limited, at 21×.

HDR Backlight adjustment in the SP-720 aims to produce a perfect exposure for every shot, by combining multiple exposures. The SP-620's nifty feature would be Multi-motion Movie IS, which compensates for camera-shake when you're making a video.

Both cameras come with a range of sparkling filters (doesn't every camera now?) that can be applied to both stills and video.

The SP-720 should be available from the end of March, costing around £300, whilst the SP-620 should be available a little earlier, in late February, and cost around £180.

If you want something a bit more compact, but still with plenty of zoom, take a peek at the SZ-14. It comes with a 24× optical zoom, the same Multi-motion Movie IS as in the SP-620, and 11 magic filters that can be applied to both stills and video. It costs about £200 and should be ready to go from mid-February.

Get tough

Olympus' TG-320 is waterproof to three metres, can withstand temperatures as low as -10 degrees Celsius, is shockproof from 1.5 metres, and all ts ports and slots are all double-sealed. Not forgetting that it's an actual camera, used to take actual photos, it comes with Dual Image Stabilisation, auto-focus tracking, and a choice of eight filters.

It should bounce into shops from mid-February, with a price-tag around £140.

All-rounders

The stylish, swanky compact camera slot is filled by the SH-21 this time around. It has a 16 megapixel CMOS sensor, a touch-sensitive LCD screen, with touch-responsive shutter and auto-focus. It can make 1080p HD video, has an ISO range of 80 to 3,200. If you think that you want this camera in your pocket, it'll cost £190 and be available from mid-February.

The VR-340 is being billed as a great value compact camera, with 10× optical zoom, nine filters (eight of which can be applied to video as well as stills), and a 16 megapixel sensor. The bit that took away my breath was the beauty make-up mode, though. Apparently this mode can add make-up effects to your subjects before you start to shoot. Wow. You too can be digitally enhanced for £130.

Finally, there's the £100 entry-level VG-170. It comes with 5× optical zoom, image stabilisation, a 15 metre flash range (yep), and nine filters to make your photos look as if you took them with a pin hole camera, or a soft focus filter, or whatever.

Whether or not these offerings will be able to compete in an already super-crowded compact camera market (see Fujifilm's 27 compacts released last week, Canon's three yesterday, and heaven only knows what else from whoever else over the next few days) is one question. The march of the camera phone is another. It's clear, though, that no one is taking this lying down.