Olympus Stylus 1030SW 10.1MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Optical Wide Angle Zoom (Silver)

Appears to be a nice product, but if the LCD goes black then you have no view finder and no access to the functions. The camera only worked for a few days so I would not recommend it.

The Olympus Stylus 1030SW has been shipping with a known defect by Olympus. In the video recording mode the sound track contains a popping sound. It is generated by any touching of the camera. Olympus is supposedly coming out with a firmware fix in September. The buyer should beware of this problem and perhaps wait to purchase until a fix is incorporated in the cameras.

The Olympus Stylus 1030SW is the coolest camera I've ever seen!!! I just got back from the beach with my family and it worked great. We had a ball with it in the ocean and now have some great memories to boot!!! The picture quality couldn't be better (as long as you use good photography techniques, you cant fight physics). I took video of myself and family riding waves in the ocean and it looks amazing. This camera is a great product that I am recommending to all my friends and family. Also, as a creative arts director for a non-profit I will be recommending its purchase by all of our new recruits.

-Make sure you buy a huge memory card though...I have the 2gig and it allows almost 2 hrs of video.

-The floating wrist strap is a must if you intend to use the camera anywhere near moving water.


Great Job Olympus!!!!

I really wanted to love this camera. It has everything I wanted: rugged, compact, waterproof, and takes great pictures. I currently have a Panasonic Lumix TZ-5, and a the Panasonic waterproof casing for it, and never used this combo with the Olympus Stylus 1030 SW around!

It was so easy to carry the Stylus 1030 SW around on the pool/beach and into the water. It starts up almost immediately upon pressing the power button so I never missed a shot. I loved that it was shock-proof so I didn't have to mentally treat it with kid gloves, and there are no protrusions on the camera to worry about breaking.

Now the bad news. After the first time going into the pool for about 3 feet underwater, the camera seems to be adversely affected. I was extra careful and followed the directions regarding checking the seals for foreign objects that may cause leaks, and they were properly closed.

I noticed that the videos taken (maybe from this point on, maybe always had this problem) had a smudge about the middle of the screen. This was not dirt on the outside of the lens where I can get at and clean. It would disappear under certain lighting conditions, but most underwater shots had it. My guess is that it's an internal reflective defect or dirt on the optics. Curiously, I don't notice it in my photos, just videos.

In addition to this, the lens would fog up during the night after some underwater excursions. The fog would cloud up the lens internally, so all photos and videos were foggy. Holding the camera in my hands would warm it up, causing the fog to get cloudier. As a work-around, I would air dry the camera each night with all its ports open, but this doesn't always work.

Another major drawback of this camera that was not publicized very well is that you MUST use the type M+ XD memory card to record VGA in 30 frames/sec. Using the included adapter my 4GB MicroSDHC card, you are limited to 10 seconds VGA 30 frames/sec videos. You can record lower resolution or VGA with 15 frames/sec videos without the M+ XD memory card, though.

Additionally, my videos would sometimes have strange regular very loud clicking sounds, about once click per second for certain stretches. This was very disconcerting.

I also noticed that the videos of bright lights indoors would sometimes have vertical glares above and below the light sources. I never noticed this phenomenon on my TZ-5 videos.

The final weird restriction that I found out only after using this camera was that it had two video modes: Underwater, and Non-underwater. In Underwater mode, you have no audio, but can use zoom. In Non-underwater mode, you can record audio, but cannot zoom. Perhaps the zooming caused horrible audio noises to be recorded so the engineers decided to never record audio while allowing zooming?

In conclusion, the Olympus Stylus 1030 SW was everything I was looking for on paper and would have been a wonderful all purpose point-and-shoot photo and video camera for all occasions. Unfortunately, my particular unit seemed not be quite waterproof as advertised, and the model had some major design drawbacks in the areas of video recording.

I really cannot recommend this camera based on the unit I had.

I've had this camera for a little over two weeks. Bought it so that i can take underwater images when in Hawaii. Haven't tried out the waterproof aspect yet, but can go ahead and give some insight into the quality of its normal pics.

10 mp camera, but is limited to 3 mp images when shooting on some of the preset modes (scenes) - specifically candlelight images and other night-time image settings. If you don't use the scene options, your images can be maxed at the 10 mp setting. Night images using scene (candlelight) were pretty grainy, so i'd avoid using that setting.

Normal daytime images were good. Crisp and clear. From power to first image - is really quick. However, taking one image at 10 mp causes a delay before you can take the next image of ~2 seconds. Unless you use the burst mode. 3-shot burst allows for 10 mp images, whereas the super 12 shot mode caps it again at 3 mp images.

People have written that the lcd screen is easy to see in any light from any angle. I discovered that this is not true. Taking an image into the sun (i know this isn't recommended) while holding the camera up high (which people will use when at weddings to shoot over people's heads) leads to glare. I had to guess what i was shooting at. I'd say image visibility on the lcd was ~50% when doing this.

Even given the above, i still like the camera a lot. Looks nice. Takes panoramic photos, battery lasts forever. Used it on and off for 4 days before it finally warned me of being low. Be careful b/c the battery indicator is deceiving. It said full for most of the time and then jumped to warning quick on me. Didn't even notice any intermediate indication position.

I give it a 3 for now until i go and try out the underwater capability.

Edit #1: Forgot to mention that the menus are pretty easy to use. Scrolling wheel menu cycles between the different options. One touch photo preview. Icons are easy to understand.

I've tried using the macro and super macro - works really well. Good detail on the close images.

One other con though - could not for the life of me figure out how to get the face detection to work. I swear that it'll sometimes follow a face and sometimes it'll target a random cup. I don't yet see an option in any of the menus that allows me to force it to do face rec every shot. Not a huge issue - but it's a spec that is being advertised, therefore i expect it to work.