Olympus SP-560 UZ Review

Rotating the Mode dial to the GUIDE position will bring up the built-in Shooting Guide on the LCD screen. There are 16 selections to choose from. The Shooting Guide not only provides detailed descriptions for various shooting environments, but also automatically sets the camera up for that specific situation by pressing "Right" on the 4-way controller.

Here you can see the Program exposure mode, in the center are the auto focus target marks, and across the bottom is image quality, SHQ = Super High Quality (8-megapixels) and there's enough space on our xD card for 86 pictures. The "shaky hand symbol" indicates that Image Stabilization is On, ISO is set to 50, Noise Reduction is enabled, and the flash is Off.

When you half-press the shutter release it starts the autofocus process and if it locks you'll get the "focus OK" green icon (top left). If autofocus fails, the green focus indicator will flash.

Press the DISPlay button and you can see the live Histogram display.

You can access a variety of Scene modes by rotating the Mode dial to the SCN position. As you go through the Scene selections an image depicting the mode is shown and then a brief text explanation of the mode is presented (shown above.) You can choose from 25 different exposure modes: Portrait, Landscape, Landscape & Portrait, Sport, Night Scene, Night & Portrait, Indoor, Candle, Self-Portrait, Available Light Portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, Cuisine, Behind Glass, Documents, Auction, Shoot & Select1, Shoot & Select2, Beach, Snow, Smile Shot, Under Water Wide 1, Under Water Wide 2, Under Water Macro and Quick Shutter.

Pressing the OK/FUNC. button will bring up the menu of options shown above.

FUNC. Menu Options

White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten (Incandescent), or Fluorescent 1, 2, 3, and Manual set

ISO - Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 (6400 1.2MP mode only)

Drive Mode - Single, Continuous, High-Speed Continuous 1 (Hi1), Hi2, Hi2 with pre-capture, AF Continuous (refocus for each shot), Bracketing

Metering - ESP, Spot, Evaluative

Press the MENU button to bring up the Record mode Menu. You can use the shortcut menus to quickly change image resolution, reset all settings to factor defaults, change the scene mode as well as enter the Camera or Setup menus.

The Image Quality Menu offers RAW with or without a duplicate JPEG whose quality you specify, SHQ including a 3:2 aspect ratio, full size HQ with greater compression, SQ1 at several resolutions and Normal or High quality, SQ2 at several resolutions and Normal or High quality and 16:9 aspect ratio at Normal quality.

Camera Menu Options

CAMERA

White Balance - Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten (Incandescent), or Fluorescent 1, 2, 3, and Manual

ISO - Auto, High ISO Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 (6400 SQ1 size)

Drive Mode - Single, Continuous, High-Speed Continuous 1 (Hi1), Hi2, Hi2 with pre-capture, AF Continuous (refocus for each shot), Bracketing

Metering - ESP, Spot, Evaluative

Fine Zoom - On or Off

Digital Zoom - Enable or disable digital zoom option

AF Mode - iESP, Face Detect, Spot, Area focus modes

Focus Mode - Auto or Manual focus

Fulltime AF - Off or On

AF Predict - Off or On

AF Illumination - Off or On

Image Stabilizer - Off or On

Flash Output - ±2EV in 1/3 EV steps

Flash Syncro - 1 or 2

Flash unit - Internal or Slave

Sound - Off or On

Panorama - Enable Panorama mode (only if using Olympus xD card)

WB Compensation - Adjust the white balance preset being used.

Sharpness - ±5 degrees

Contrast - ±5 degrees

Saturation - ±5 degrees

Noise Reduction - Off or On

TimeLapse - Off or On

Conversion Lens - Off or On







SETUP Menu Options

Format - Format the xD memory card

Backup - Copy images stored in internal memory to the installed xD memory card.

Menu Language - English, French, Espanol, Portuguese

PW ON Setup - Select power up screen animation and sound level

Beep - Choose sound(1 or 2) and volume (Low, High or Off)

Camera sounds - Choose Volume (Low, High or Off)

Shutter Sound - Choose sound(1 or 2) and volume (Low, High or Off)

Volume - Set volume of audio playback

Rec View - View image immediately after capture on LCD, Off or ON

Menu Display - LCD only or Current

File Name - Select between Reset and Auto

Pixel Mapping - Map out bad pixels

Monitor Brightness - Adjust LCD backlight

Set Clock - Set time and or date

Dual Time Setup - On/Off

Alarm Clock - Daily or One-Time

Video Out - Video out signal - NTSC or PAL format

Frame Assist - Toggles frames assist display settings

Histogram - On/Off

My Mode Setup - Set preferences of My mode (exposure mode, Exposure Comp, Flash mode, etc.), 4 sets of settings available

m/ft - Select unit of measurement (Meters or Feet)

Custom Button - Choose the function of the custom button (IS mode, AF lock, AE, lock, Image quality, etc.)














Press the 4-way selector "left" to enable the Macro focus mode and take closeup shots at a range of from 3.9 - infinity (10cm - infinity) at wide angle, 47.2" - infinity (1.2m - infinity) at telephoto, or enable Super Macro mode and get as close as .39 inch (1cm)







The Panorama mode has an onscreen guide to help you make the best possible panorama pictures by getting the necessary overlap between successive images. Up to 10 frames can be captured and then stitched together with the Camedia Master software. You must use an Olympus brand xD-Picture Card to use the Panorama mode.







Movie mode lets you capture SHQ (640x480, 30fps), HQ (320x240, 15fps) or SQ (160x120, 15fps) resolution motion video with sound. The length of a movie is limited only by the available memory. If the movie is recorded with sound (enabled via the Rec. Menu), the optical zoom may not be used during recording. However, you can preset the desired focal length before starting to record a movie.