Olympus Stylus 1000

You can't have everything, especially among Olympus compact cameras. While they have plenty of similar cameras that serve specific purposes, there's no catch-all, high-end, great-at-everything camera. The Olympus Stylus 720SW offers waterproof shooting. The Stylus 730 features an intuitive design and a 3-inch LCD screen. The Stylus 750 includes an image-stabilized, 5X optical zoom lens. And none of these Stylus cameras share those useful features. The Olympus Stylus 1000 follows that trend: it features a 10-megapixel sensor, but it isn't waterproof, its LCD screen is only 2.5 inches, and its meager 3X, 35-to-105mm-equivalent lens lacks optical stabilization.

The Stylus 1000's sturdy metal body has a gentle wedge shape, making the camera extremely comfortable for one-handed use. However, the tapered left side makes it even more awkward for left-handed users than most point-and-shoots. The controls are mostly flat buttons that are responsive under the thumb, but extremely similar in feel. It's easy to accidentally hit the menu button instead of the direction pad when reviewing your photos. The power and the image-stabilization buttons sit on either side of the shutter release, but they're recessed enough that you probably won't accidentally press them while shooting.

Though light on the manual controls, the Stylus 1000 has some very nice features. Like all Stylii, its metal body has rubber gaskets and seals to keep water and gunk out. You can't shoot underwater, but you can splash it without fear or hesitation. For low-light and action shots, the Stylus includes digital image stabilization and can shoot at as much as ISO 6,400, but images greater than ISO 1,600 are cut down to five megapixels. The camera lacks an autofocus light, but it does automatically increase the gain of its 2.5-inch screen when shooting in low light, making it easier to frame your shot. Besides some basic controls, such as exposure compensation, ISO, and white balance, it has 24 scene modes that let casual shooters set the camera for the type of shot they want. The camera also includes a 30fps VGA movie mode for shooting video clips.

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