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Olympus D-535 Zoom Review
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Review
Date: Nov 22, 2004 |
Category:
Point-and-Shoot
IMAGE QUALITY
The Olympus Camedia D-535 Zoom is a digital
camera targeted to first-time point-and-shoot
photographers. It has 3.2 megapixel resolution
on a 1/2.7 in. CCD image sensor.
This camera is really intended for those just
starting to get interested in photography or simply
wants an affordable point-and-shoot for regular
4x6 in. prints. It has 3x optical zoom with a
35mm equivalent of 38-114mm. The 114mm is perfect
for portrait head-shots. Metering is Center-Weighted
Average and works fine in most situations. In
situations where there is a lot of highlights,
such as an expanse of bright sky, the D-535 allows
you to dial in a positive exposure compensation
to ensure your main subject is properly exposed.
We find the overall image quality of the Olympus
D-535 to be quite good for its intended audience
though image quality does not approach that from
the more expensive 3+ megapixel digital cameras.
However, the Olympus D-535 is very capable of
taking very nice pictures (see the Photo
Gallery).
| 3x
Optical Zoom |
 |
 |
Wide-angle
5.8mm
(38mm, 35mm equivalent) |
Telephoto
17.4mm
(114mm, 35mm equivalent) |
In the above pictures, we show the coverage for
38mm, and then 114mm.
| Macro |
 |
5.8mm, Auto, Center-Weighted
Average, 1/168.2 sec., F2.9, ISO 64
Macro |
There are two macro modes on the D-535: standard
macro at 8 cm (8 in.) and Super Macro at 2 cm
(0.8 in.). You can zoom in standard macro mode,
but not in Super Macro mode.
Auto white balance (AWB) is on the warm side
indoors under artificial lighting. AWB generally
works well in natural light, or indoors with flash.
There is no manual ISO selection, so the equivalent
of ISO 64-250 is automatically selected.
The one weakness of the D-535 is when used indoors
in low-light. Lacking AF-Assist, it is almost
impossible to lock focus in low-light. As long
as there is enough light, you'll be OK (e.g. bright
malls), but ordinary subdued room lighting will
definitely pose a challenge. I was not able to
take the usual images for this section to verify
low-light capability.
The pictures in the Olympus Camedia D-535
Zoom Photo Gallery page provide a good sample
of what the camera is capable of. I have provided
samples at 800x600 pixels (compressed to Quality
60/100 in Photoshop Elements).
You can safely assume that most macro shots
and slow shutter speed shots required the use
of a tripod. Any image that is adjusted for levels
in Photoshop has "_adjusted" appended
to the file name. Other suffixes are self-explanatory.
I have defaulted the image size to 800x600 pixels.
For those who have their monitor resolution set
to 1024x728 pixels, everything should snugly fit
and you should not have to scroll to see the whole
image. If your monitor is set to 800x600 pixels
resolution, start the slide show and then scroll
to the right to position the image within your
screen width. Then, press F11 (if you are using
Internet Explorer) to switch to full screen mode,
and the image should fill your screen nicely.
Press F11 again at any time to switch your monitor
display back to normal mode.
To return to this page from the Photo Gallery,
click on the animated graphics of the camera.
Please open and download the original size version
only if you need to and only once
to your hard drive -- and save me some precious
bandwidth. Thanks!
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