Olympus mju 1050 SW Digital Camera

A few weeks ago, my wife and I decided that it was time to investigate the possible purchase of a submersible digital camera. We had long-since replaced our ubiquitous bags full of 35mm rolls we used to lug around with us on vacation with flash memory cards, but when it came to getting shots in wet conditions or under water, we were still stuck in the ol' disposable waterproof 35mm box-camera mode.

Like most everybody else, digital photography has spoiled us just the ability to instantly review your shots & cull the lousy ones prior to processing is a revelation. We d always wanted a digital submersible, but we found that the models which had the features we wanted were waaaay too expensive. I don t have a problem with paying a premium price for something of inherent quality & functionality, but for an item like this (who s specialized features are something I ll need only very occasionally), parting with the equivalent of a couple week s pay for a camera is pretty much out of the question. On the flip-side; most of the more affordable models available lacked either certain features we wanted, or were simply of an inferior level of refinement & build-quality.

Something had to be done we were days from leaving on a trip to the Dominican Republic & we planned to see (& hopefully photograph) an abundance of sea-life, coral reefs, etc.

We were getting more than a little discouraged when, on a grocery shopping excursion to our local Costco, we noticed the Stylus 1050SW. What first struck me is the fact that it didn t look at all like a waterproof camera. It had a nice gold (or champagne, if you will) and chrome finish. In my mind, a camera like what I was looking for was going to be some big bulky thing housed in a bright yellow plastic enclosure or a regular-old camera housed in an awkward looking clear vinyl pouch. The 1050SW resembled any ultra-compact full-function digital point-&-shoot you might come by. Best of all it was on sale at the time for a very tempting price of $229.95. In a matter of minutes, the camera and I had left the store together.

Like I said, this doesn t look like any submersible camera I d ever seen, so when we got to the beach at Punta Cana I was more than a little reticent about leaping into the surf with my new purchase. I got up the courage, though, & I was rewarded with scores of fantastic images of colorful tropical fish, dazzling coral formations as well as of my fellow snorkelers. The position of the camera s various controls make it fairly easy to use (even while wearing a snorkeling mask) in such unusual conditions . The un-touched images were very vivid (quite a bit more so than I would have expected in a shooting environment so completely dominated by mostly blues, greens and grays, as this was). The 10.1 mega pixel sensor (the largest, pixel-wise, I ve ever owned) allows for grain-free enlarging to a surprising scale.

The camera has a 3X digital zoom capability. At first, my thinking was "that seems a bit limited... at least compared to other cameras I've owned; but in all honesty, if you are going to need more magnification than that,you're going to have one heck of a time keeping your image stable. Yes, there is a threaded tripod receptor on the bottom, but this camera is, ostensibly, a "throw it in your pocket and go" kind of device... I'll likely never attach it to a tripod support. In this case, I feel that 3X is plenty of "zoom".

The camera has a feature that allows the user (if I get this correctly) to access various functions by tapping on the housing. I might be missing something here (& goodness knows I haven t taken the time to actually learn the process), but a part of me questions just how efficient or practical this feature would be. After all; I can pretty much conjure up any function I desire using just the thumb of my right hand. Simple enough? Like I say though, I ve only had this camera a little more than a week, so maybe I have some learning to do.

There are exactly three things about the Olympus 1050SW that I either don t like, or find annoying:

A) The use of a proprietary 3.7VDC rechargeable lithium ion battery. I didn t realize this until I got home, so my first inclination was well can t exactly pop into the local Dominican 7-11 for a quick replacement while this one s recharging; better go down to Ritz & get a spare". I left that store in a state of "litheum-ion induced sticker-shock" as this teeny-tiny little replacement cell cost me more than $50.00, but I had no choice my plane was to leave long before I could score a deal on eBay.

B) As with many of Olympus products, an XD memory card is used. Not all that big a deal, except for the fact that I don t have a n XD reader so I have to deal with the supplied USB cable to read the images directly from the camera until such time that I do acquire such a reader.

C) (and this one didn t dawn on me until two days after buying the camera) There s no optical viewfinder! At first, I didn t think this would be any big deal until I attempted to get a particular shot that put the sun behind me, just off to one side. With my head not in a position to cast a shadow on the camera s LCD screen, the glare of the sun basically made it impossible to figure out exactly what the camera was pointing at, & I was longing for the little optical viewfinder on my other camera (which, incidentally, I almost never used. Almost, that is).

These relatively minor foibles aside, the Olympus 1050SW exceeded my expectation in just about every respect. Besides being water-tight, it s also designed to be unusually shock-resistant (an asset which I don t plan to test at least not intentionally). The build-quality is excellent; the camera is very solidly constructed (it isn t heavy , per se, though it does weigh more than it s diminutive size would suggests, which, to me, would suggest a kind of efficiency of design/engineering).

My Olympus 1050SW has passed it s inaugural test; it survived seven days of essentially non-stop diving, sailing, jet-skiing & hiking and came out looking and functioning as new and it s earned it s place as my new primary camera.