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Olympus 770 SW Report - Here it is!
Olympus 770 SW Report - Here it is!
St. John Camera Report
Olympus Stylus 770 SW Blue 7.1-megapixel Camera
On island March 13 - 20th 2007.
This is our fifth trip to St. John. My wife is a Creative Memories Consultant/ scrap booker, so the family has always taken lots of pictures. The first two years we used throwaways for under water shots. Year 3 we picked up a Canon Sure Shot A-1 underwater film camera which took much better shots (and floated) but you had to wait for development. This year, my wife's Nikon 2100 digital was getting a little long in the tooth, so we were looking for a replacement. I saw the Stylus 720 SW last year, but it wasn't out in time for our trip in April; I was also a little leery about the 3 meter depth rating since I'd been in much deeper water than that. When the 770 SW came out with a 33 ft rating - I bit. Since it was just released, there weren't a lot of bargains to be had. I went with OneCall.com with free FedEx shipping @ $379. The camera arrived in record time which was fortunate since we were to leave in just 5 days.
The 770 SW is a solid camera with all metal body. It feels dense in your hand and will no doubt sink fast to the bottom if you were to let go. Here are some stock shots. (Note that my camera has none of the colored green, black or red symbols, only etched grey.)
There are two gasketed covers with spring latches. One compartment covers the battery and the card slot. The other covers the USB port. Those are the only interfaces. The battery is a common small Olympus battery, the LI-42B. I was able to purchase a backup shipped for less than $20. The 770 SW takes the smaller XD type card which is not as prevalent as SD type and therefore tends to cost a little more. I bought 3 - 512 mb cards for (<$20 each) the trip and needed only 2. I've seen 1 gbs for $25 since we've gotten back. I bought a Lowepro Ridge 10 and it was perfect with a compartment for the camera, battery, and memory. Once the initial charge of 6 hours or so was done on each battery I was ready to go.
Operation-
Used the flight to St. Thomas to read the operation manual. It was pretty basic and easily understood. I took a couple of shots during the trip to St. John. The first was a timed shot while waiting for the downtown ferry. There is a 2 and 10 second timer that is easily set and the notification lamp is very clear when it was ready to fire. Wednesday was the first real trial in the water. We were at Little Lameshur Bay and it was a bright sunny day around noon. The surface of the display on the 770 SW is glass smooth, not matte, so there was a lot of glare on the screen. I found an easily accessed screen brightness and easy able to crank up the screen was in the water I found the brightness setting very helpful in framing your shots. I won't over sell the screen here... It took some getting used to, but in most conditions, I was able to follow a moving picture subject until I got the right shot. As in most underwater cameras, sometimes you just have to point and shoot and hope for the best. What is nice about the 770 SW is that the 7.1 mp resolution allows you to re-center and crop misses and off center shots and still retain image quality. Here are two un-retouched photos from Little Lameshur-
The camera has 4 underwater "scene" modes that are easily accessible with out having to go into the menu. There is an audible tone when you are stepping through which is easily heard underwater. These modes are:
Underwater portrait
Underwater 1 (for still(ish) images)
Underwater 2 (for moving images)
Underwater Macro (I love this Octopus Shot!)
The movie mode works well underwater as seen through this link (warning - big file - 8 mb)
Swim with the turtle.
Out of the water there the camera worked very well also. There were many preset scenes as well as manual adjustments.
This is a colorful shot taken on our porch.
Here is a difficult shot at the Stone Terrace in the late afternoon.
There is also a decent panorama utility. Here's Maho Beach (funny thing; it was pouring rain a few minutes after this shot.)
As I stated in the beginning, all of these shots have not been adjusted for light and color. I'm currently looking for a good software application to handle this for me.
All in all I think it's a great solid camera with a lot of features and good underwater performance.
Some additional notable points:
<li> The save to card time and flash charge are both very fast. Impressive compared to a Nikon P6 we tried that had about 8 seconds between flash shots
<li> Buttons are all very tactile and well laid out.
<li> At 2.3 x 3.6 x .8 inches, it's the size of a small pack of cards and fits easily in your hand.
<li> The screen is exceptionally detailed for reviewing and deleting photos as we did on the plane ride home.
<li> Battery lasts a little over an hour on high brightness. Invest in a spare battery.
<li> Camera needs to be rinsed off every day after using in salt water (like all UW cameras) "Cleaning" is slogging in a bucket of clean fresh water while opening and closing the lens cover.
<li> Strap is a little short for my liking. Went to Cruz bay photo for a fancy strap like I have on my Canon A-1. They didn't have any think, but the rubber band strap he gave me from a disposable he had processed worked just fine as an extension.
<li> The available silicone skin may or may not improve/protect the camera, I bought the 720 SW skin that does not fit the 770 SW so please do not make the assumption that they are interchangeable because they are not.
<li> Fortunately, I can't report on the shock resistance, but I felt better knowing that I didn't have to constantly worry about dropping my new investment.
We'll be taking this camera back with us next year when we go to St. John... you won't be finding ours on e-bay. The next test is when my less technically adept wife takes it to Bermuda in a couple weeks for the Girl Scout trip she's chaperoning. She has my 17 year old daughter for tech advice, so I think she'll be OK.
Good luck if you're camera shopping and feel free to PM or e-mail any questions to me that you may want to take off line.
Olympus Stylus 770 SW Blue 7.1-megapixel Camera
On island March 13 - 20th 2007.
This is our fifth trip to St. John. My wife is a Creative Memories Consultant/ scrap booker, so the family has always taken lots of pictures. The first two years we used throwaways for under water shots. Year 3 we picked up a Canon Sure Shot A-1 underwater film camera which took much better shots (and floated) but you had to wait for development. This year, my wife's Nikon 2100 digital was getting a little long in the tooth, so we were looking for a replacement. I saw the Stylus 720 SW last year, but it wasn't out in time for our trip in April; I was also a little leery about the 3 meter depth rating since I'd been in much deeper water than that. When the 770 SW came out with a 33 ft rating - I bit. Since it was just released, there weren't a lot of bargains to be had. I went with OneCall.com with free FedEx shipping @ $379. The camera arrived in record time which was fortunate since we were to leave in just 5 days.
The 770 SW is a solid camera with all metal body. It feels dense in your hand and will no doubt sink fast to the bottom if you were to let go. Here are some stock shots. (Note that my camera has none of the colored green, black or red symbols, only etched grey.)
There are two gasketed covers with spring latches. One compartment covers the battery and the card slot. The other covers the USB port. Those are the only interfaces. The battery is a common small Olympus battery, the LI-42B. I was able to purchase a backup shipped for less than $20. The 770 SW takes the smaller XD type card which is not as prevalent as SD type and therefore tends to cost a little more. I bought 3 - 512 mb cards for (<$20 each) the trip and needed only 2. I've seen 1 gbs for $25 since we've gotten back. I bought a Lowepro Ridge 10 and it was perfect with a compartment for the camera, battery, and memory. Once the initial charge of 6 hours or so was done on each battery I was ready to go.
Operation-
Used the flight to St. Thomas to read the operation manual. It was pretty basic and easily understood. I took a couple of shots during the trip to St. John. The first was a timed shot while waiting for the downtown ferry. There is a 2 and 10 second timer that is easily set and the notification lamp is very clear when it was ready to fire. Wednesday was the first real trial in the water. We were at Little Lameshur Bay and it was a bright sunny day around noon. The surface of the display on the 770 SW is glass smooth, not matte, so there was a lot of glare on the screen. I found an easily accessed screen brightness and easy able to crank up the screen was in the water I found the brightness setting very helpful in framing your shots. I won't over sell the screen here... It took some getting used to, but in most conditions, I was able to follow a moving picture subject until I got the right shot. As in most underwater cameras, sometimes you just have to point and shoot and hope for the best. What is nice about the 770 SW is that the 7.1 mp resolution allows you to re-center and crop misses and off center shots and still retain image quality. Here are two un-retouched photos from Little Lameshur-
The camera has 4 underwater "scene" modes that are easily accessible with out having to go into the menu. There is an audible tone when you are stepping through which is easily heard underwater. These modes are:
Underwater portrait
Underwater 1 (for still(ish) images)
Underwater 2 (for moving images)
Underwater Macro (I love this Octopus Shot!)
The movie mode works well underwater as seen through this link (warning - big file - 8 mb)
Swim with the turtle.
Out of the water there the camera worked very well also. There were many preset scenes as well as manual adjustments.
This is a colorful shot taken on our porch.
Here is a difficult shot at the Stone Terrace in the late afternoon.
There is also a decent panorama utility. Here's Maho Beach (funny thing; it was pouring rain a few minutes after this shot.)
As I stated in the beginning, all of these shots have not been adjusted for light and color. I'm currently looking for a good software application to handle this for me.
All in all I think it's a great solid camera with a lot of features and good underwater performance.
Some additional notable points:
<li> The save to card time and flash charge are both very fast. Impressive compared to a Nikon P6 we tried that had about 8 seconds between flash shots
<li> Buttons are all very tactile and well laid out.
<li> At 2.3 x 3.6 x .8 inches, it's the size of a small pack of cards and fits easily in your hand.
<li> The screen is exceptionally detailed for reviewing and deleting photos as we did on the plane ride home.
<li> Battery lasts a little over an hour on high brightness. Invest in a spare battery.
<li> Camera needs to be rinsed off every day after using in salt water (like all UW cameras) "Cleaning" is slogging in a bucket of clean fresh water while opening and closing the lens cover.
<li> Strap is a little short for my liking. Went to Cruz bay photo for a fancy strap like I have on my Canon A-1. They didn't have any think, but the rubber band strap he gave me from a disposable he had processed worked just fine as an extension.
<li> The available silicone skin may or may not improve/protect the camera, I bought the 720 SW skin that does not fit the 770 SW so please do not make the assumption that they are interchangeable because they are not.
<li> Fortunately, I can't report on the shock resistance, but I felt better knowing that I didn't have to constantly worry about dropping my new investment.
We'll be taking this camera back with us next year when we go to St. John... you won't be finding ours on e-bay. The next test is when my less technically adept wife takes it to Bermuda in a couple weeks for the Girl Scout trip she's chaperoning. She has my 17 year old daughter for tech advice, so I think she'll be OK.
Good luck if you're camera shopping and feel free to PM or e-mail any questions to me that you may want to take off line.
-
MrsCARolph
- Posts: 155
- Joined: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:57 pm
- Location: Minneapolis, MN
I appreciate the report! We're currently considering either this camera or the Canon SD 800.
The underwater pix are very nice, but one thing that I've read in other reviews is that the out of water shots were just okay--nothing amazing. What's your opinion on this?
Thanks again for the review--very helpful!!
The underwater pix are very nice, but one thing that I've read in other reviews is that the out of water shots were just okay--nothing amazing. What's your opinion on this?
Thanks again for the review--very helpful!!
CarolPH -MrsCARolph wrote: The underwater pix are very nice, but one thing that I've read in other reviews is that the out of water shots were just okay--nothing amazing. What's your opinion on this?
I thought the land photos were pretty good. Bright light shots appeared a little washed, but I'm sure there is a setting to address and correct. We had a seperate camera, a Sanyo XACTI C-40 that we took our video/on land still with. If you'd like to check, there are acouple more land shots on my other previous string regarding the 770 SW.
The color corrected underwater shots are comparable to what I get with a Canon S410 with the case.
I tried running the images through Photoshop Element's tweaks and the Enhance->Auto-Color-Correction did improve the color balance. On my Canon I need to do an Enhance->Auto-Levels since there is no underwater mode on that camera.
Photoshop Elements is good for the tech minded, but over-kill for most folks.
Cheers, RickG
I tried running the images through Photoshop Element's tweaks and the Enhance->Auto-Color-Correction did improve the color balance. On my Canon I need to do an Enhance->Auto-Levels since there is no underwater mode on that camera.
Photoshop Elements is good for the tech minded, but over-kill for most folks.
Cheers, RickG
S/V Echoes - Coral Bay - St. John, VI
Here is the camera from Amazon - if you are thinking of buying one, purchasing from this link helps the forum:
<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=caribbeano ... FFFF&f=ifr" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" height="220"></iframe>
Steve awesome report - thanks.
<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=caribbeano ... FFFF&f=ifr" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" height="220"></iframe>
Steve awesome report - thanks.
Anthony for Virgin Islands On Line
Don't forget too that just saving these as jpg's usually takes some "bounce" and contrast out of the photo. You have to really pump up the levels (color, contrast) of most pictures before saving for the web if you want the picture to look anything like it would "raw". For an example, check out my latest offering - <a href="http://www.florence-journal.com/photos/ ... g"><b>Pork Roast</b></a>
That is a 72 dpi medium quality jpg. If I didn't adjust it first, it wouldn't look so good "on the web".
I used to use Photoshop for this, and Rick mentioned Image Ready , but now iPhoto can do all of this stuff very easily with just a few sliders.
That is a 72 dpi medium quality jpg. If I didn't adjust it first, it wouldn't look so good "on the web".
I used to use Photoshop for this, and Rick mentioned Image Ready , but now iPhoto can do all of this stuff very easily with just a few sliders.
Anthony for Virgin Islands On Line
When I was a Girl Scout the only trip we took was to the Poconos camping for a weekend, froze our butts off! That was 35 years ago, my times have changed! 
