Olympus Stylus Digital 810 Review

Rotating the Mode dial to the GUIDE position will bring up the built-in Shooting Guide on the LCD screen. There are 13 selections to choose from.

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 82 pictures. The "shaky hand symbol" indicates that Digital Image Stabilization is On. It uses Olympus' Bright Capture technology, which boosts the ISO sensitivity. This keeps shutter speeds higher in order to reduce the blurring effects of camera shake or subject movement during the exposure.

This feature can be enabled or disabled in any record mode (even movie mode.) While image size is not reduced when using this feature, you can not make changes to ISO or Drive settings while it is enabled.

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 focus fail you will get a red "can't focus" icon (not shown.) The "red lightning bolt" icon indicates the flash is charged and ready to fire.

Pressing the 4-way controller Up, Down, Left or Right allows you to quickly change settings for Macro focus mode, Flash mode, Self-timer, and Exposure compensation.

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 20 different exposure modes: Portrait, Landscape, Landscape+Portriat, Night Scene, Night+Portrait, Sport, Indoor, Candle, Self Portrait, Available Light Portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, Museum, Cuisine, Behind Glass, Documents, Auction, Shoot&Select 1, Shoot&Select 2, and Beach&Snow.

Even though the Stylus 810 is weather resistant, it can not be submerged.

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

FUNC. Menu Options

Exposure mode - Choose Program AE or Full Auto

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

ISO - Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 (3200 SQ1 size)

Drive Mode - Single, High-Speed Continuous

Metering - ESP or Spot

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.

Camera Menu Options

CAMERA

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

ISO - Auto, 64, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 (3200 SQ1 size)

Drive Mode - Single, High-Speed Continuous

Metering - ESP or Spot

Digital Zoom - Enable or disable digital zoom option

AF Mode - iESP or Spot focus modes

Voice Memo - Off or On

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

SETUP Menu Options

Format - Format the xD memory card

Backup - Save a copy of images on to your PC

Menu Language - English, French, Espanol, Portuguese

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

Color - Choose menu background: Normal, Blue, Black, Pink

Beep - Choose Low, High or Off

Camera sounds - Low, High or Off

Shutter Sound - Choose Shutter theme

Rec View - View image immediately after capture on LCD

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

Histogram - On/Off

Frame Assist - Toggles frames assist display settings

Press the 4-way selector "left" to enable the Macro focus mode and take closeup shots at a range of from 11.8" (0.3m) to infinity at Wide angle, 19.7" (0.5m) to infinity at Telephoto or enable Super Macro mode and get as close as 3.9 inches (10cm.)

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, 30fps) or SQ (160x120, 15fps) resolution motion video with sound. The length of a movie is limited only by the available memory. Because the Stylus 810 features a built-in microphone, the optical zoom may not be used during recording. However, you can preset the desired focal length before starting to record a movie.