Photography Digest

Returning in 2001, when it was possible to cost $999 for a lightweight online electronic camera, Olympus designed the C-3040Z, C-4040Z and C5050Z which offered some of the brightest zooms to ever appear on such electronic cameras. Unfortunately, as the decades have gone on and costs have decreased, Olympus shifted away from this factor of the industry and it's been a while since we seemed to it for class-leading compacts.

Despite the dropping cost of entry-level DSLRs and the overall look of their more lightweight mirrorless opponents, the fan lightweight industry has seen a revival, with New new new samsung and Nikon weighing-in and Concept going as far as providing a second design to the melee (the S90 enhanced the PowerShot 'S' sequence to sit together with the organization's stalwart G series). Olympus, meanwhile, has stayed silent.

With the release of the XZ-1 it becomes obvious that Olympus hasn't been seated idly by - instead it has clearly been viewing the industry very effectively and has analyzed the available electronic cameras incredibly. Due to this research is an fan lightweight that needs the best components of its opponents and takes up them into a very eye-catching system.

There's a shiny relationships, of course, with the XZ-1 becoming the first of the organization's compacts to ever use its well known 'Zuiko' place. And it's obvious why the organization would want to highlight the optics, having designed the brightest contact of any current lightweight while still providing a truly useful extensive variety. The i.Zuiko relationships is F1.8 at the 28mm comparative end and a still very amazing F2.5 at the 112mm creating.

But the specifications doesn't end at the relationships - the XZ-1 is designed around an enhanced stage of stage of stage of sensitivity 1/1.63" CCD which, along with its co-workers, creates it one of the bigger receptors to appear in a lightweight online electronic camera with a built-in relationships. To this it results in two management telephone mobile cellphone calls (including an S90-style modify around the lens) and a shiny, high-resolution OLED display. Other high-end features include a display hot shoes and the capability to easily management off-board flashguns. It's complicated to think about what else Olympus could have set into the XZ-1's eye-catching metal-fronted system.

From the front it's clear that the XZ-1 is slightly larger than the two smallest enthusiast compacts (the Panasonic LX5 and Canon S95). It's about the same size as Samsung's EX1/TL 500, making it much more conveniently sized than the larger Canon G12 or Nikon P7000.
The top-down view emphasizes the dimensional differences between the three cameras and also shows the flash hot shoe.

Olympus XZ-1 specification highlights:

• High Sensitivity 10MP CCD sensor
• 28-112mm equivalent lens
• F1.8-2.5 maximum aperture
• CCD-shift image stabilization
• Twin control dials, including one around the lens
• ISO 100-6400
• New TruPic V processor (as used in the company's PEN series)
• Large 3.0" 621k (VGA equivalent) OLED display
• 720p movie mode (30 fps in Motion JPEG format)
• Micro HDMI connector
• 6 Art Filters (As per the PEN series)
• In-camera RAW conversion
• Built-in flash, hotshoe and remote flash control
• Built-in ND filter
  

That lens in context:

The super-bright F1.8-2.5 relationships does more than let you keep the ISO alternatives down in low mild. It also allows a amazing level of management over depth-of-field. It's sometimes complicated to perform out how much or little depth-of-field a relationships will generate, thanks to different indication styles (and the unclear way in which they are often designated), but the key aspects are the actual measurement the aperture and the angle-of-view.

In this example, at the lengthy end of its zoom capability ability capability, the XZ-1 has an aperture with a measurement 9.6mm at 112mm comparative, which investigates positively to the 9.8mm highest possible possible aperture at the 83mm comparative of a common APS-C 18-55 F3.5-5.6 kit relationships. It indicates the XZ-1 should give at least as ambiguous a experience and do so at something much better the conventional symbol primary duration. Furthermore this would mean the XZ-1 should give higher management over depth-of-field than a Little Four Thirds kit relationships, since they usually provide 7.5mm at 84mm comparative.

All-in-all, this would mean the XZ-1 provides identical management over depth-of-field and a more versatile primary duration extensive variety than most DSLRs or mirrorless camcorders with their kit relationships, creating it a aggressive substitute unless you way to buy extra relationships.
Original Article:www.dpreview.com