Olympus SP-590 Ultra Zoom Review
Olympus has done a respectable job of outfitting the rest of the SP-590 all the same. The 12 megapixel SP uses a 2.7 inch HyperCrystal II LCD for shot composition duties, and offers Olympus’s trademark Shadow Adjustment Technology as well. Other features include face detection, compatibility with Olympus’s range of wireless-ready external flash units, and a high-speed TruePic III processor that claims to provide faster sequential shooting and better high ISO performance.
In addition to its generous flash control options, the SP-590 should appeal to advanced and advancing photographers with a full complement of manual exposure controls that includes aperture and shutter priority modes. Twenty-nine total shooting modes also encompass several “artistic” scene modes inspired by the Olympus E-30, including a multiple exposure mode (for compositing two or more shots into a single frame) and a setting for softening backgrounds.
Of course, Dual Image Stabilization (using both mechanical and ISO boost methods) is essentially a must for a camera with this kind of zoom range.
All things considered, while Olympus is unquestionably a masterful builder of zoom lenses, the SP-590’s lens does raise some obvious questions about performance and image quality. Built around 14 lenses in 11 groups – including 4 aspherical lenses and 3 ED elements – the lens’s compact design will no doubt appeal to space-saving shooters. But with nearly 700mm of reach at the long end and an extremely wide 26mm at the other, the optical compromises are almost certain to manifest themselves in the images to some degree. Just how much, though, is the open question at this point.