Olympus Mju 800

With the market dominated by 4-, 5- and 6-megapixel digital cameras, Olympus aims to lead the pack of compact shooters with its 8-megapixel unit. If the number of pixels hasn't blown you away, the Mju Digital 800's intuitive control dials and user-friendly built-in help manual should make life more convenient for the scatter-brain and for budding photographers who wish to have a certain amount of control over their all-weather camera.

Design
Available in glossy dark blue and silver, this 8-megapixel compact camera with 3x optical zoom comes with a weatherproof metallic body. Though not as slim and slender as the ultracompacts, the Mju Digital 800's size measuring 103 x 57.5 x 33mm makes for a comfortable fit in the hand. Rather than feeling the weight of 181g, it lends to an overall sturdy and secure feel.

The main controls including the selector dial and the zoom buttons are to the right of the 2.5-inch LCD.

Additional features of the camera are positioned to the left of the screen.

Curves, edges, carefully sculpted control dials and a large 2.5-inch LCD dominate the rear of the camera. Most of the commonly used functions are accessible within a thumb's reach, including a four-way navigational button and the rotating wheel dial that is usually found at the top of most models. Even the zoom button is ergonomically shaped to fit the contours of the thumb. Though it is possible to work this camera with one hand, it requires two hands to access the full functions of its features for the Quick View, Guide, Display and Timer/Delete buttons which have been relegated to the left of the display screen.

The connections for USB, AV out and AC adapter share the limited space in the battery compartment.

The Mju Digital 800 uses xD-Picture card.

The xD-Picture card and battery reside in different holding areas on the Mju Digital 800. As part of its weatherproof feature, both compartments are lined with a piece of rubber to protect the contents in its interior.

The angled profile of the camera with its protruding lens. The shutter and power buttons get to stay on top of the unit.

The lens cover is easily identifiable on the front of the camera body, but it slides away in under a second when the unit is powered up to reveal a protruding lens. One concern we had was that the area underneath the cover felt hollow and as if it would chip on impact. Sharing front row seats are the flash unit, AF assist lamp and the microphone -- the speakers are strangely located at the bottom of the unit. In stark contrast to the high tenancy at the back of the camera, only the shutter and power buttons line the camera's top. The slot for the strap hides within the body itself so there are no protruding edges.

Features
The Mju Digital 800 is equipped with Bright Capture Technology that enhanced our shooting experience with minimal light. The unit performed unexpectedly well indoors and, with flash enabled, our pictures were generally correctly exposed. The feature increases the camera's sensitivity while reducing resolution to 2,048 x 1,536 megapixels when the anti-shake mode is turned on to counter the occasional hand movement.

The scene modes have descriptions to show the user when to use which.

The shooting guide is the electronic form of the traditional user manual. It teaches you how to tweak certain settings to shoot in different conditions.

The camera's extensive help function can be accessed with the dedicated Guide button. It shows us the purpose and the recommended use of various functions directly on the LCD--now you can chuck the traditional manual booklet aside. The unit also allows control over the aperture and shutter priority settings for intermediate photographers looking for that something extra in their pictures.

Although the camera comes with only 19MB internal memory to take you through a couple of high-resolution pictures, it is better than not having any. The camera accepts only xD-Picture cards and Olympus strongly encourages the use of its memory cards to make use of the built-in software that allows panorama stitching. The Mju Digital 800 offers several resolution options with a high 640 x 480 movie mode. It also supports PictBridge connectivity allowing direct printing from a printer without going through a desktop.

Thinking of waking up early to catch that early sunrise shot? Besides functioning as a digital camera, the Mju Digital 800 also doubles as an alarm clock, with snooze capability.

Performance
The unit did not disappoint when it came to performance. It took slightly less than 2 seconds to power up for the first picture. Time between consecutive shots was minimal--averaging about 2 seconds without flash and 2.5 seconds with flash.

Its 3x zoom function worked smoothly via a concave button that fits the contours of the thumb. For sporting enthusiasts, the camera was well able to take sequential shots with no apparent lag, limited only by the capacity of the memory card.

The large LCD screen worked well under both bright light and dim conditions. With the help of the AF assist lamp, the unit was able to focus quickly.

Image quality
With the Bright Capture Technology, our pictures turned out correctly exposed. The colours of our snaps were generally rich and we saw sharp images in high resolutions. Even though the sensitivity and resolution settings were reduced in the anti-shake mode, our pictures turned out to be only slightly blurry indoors under ambient light. The flash appeared to be too strong especially within enclosed environments. However, that could be corrected by tweaking the intensity settings. Image noise was well under control especially under ISO 200, with increasing noise at higher ISO settings. Overall, we found the image quality to be very good for a digital camera in this category.

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