Reviewing the various SP550 image samples available on the internet is a good exercise in determining whether the photo-taking capability and image quality you get from this latest camera from Olympus meets your requirements or not.
For convenience sake, I’ll link up to review samples, as well as photos and galleries of images shot by Olympus SP-550 owners. Where the images are available as full-sized versions, I’ll make a note of that. Other pictures will be resized and post-processed, but I feel it’s also important to show what wonderful photography current SP550 users are getting with their camera.
Review Samples
Full-sized, unretouched images from the SP-550 UZ can be viewed at LetsGoDigital.org. The series was shot at Spring Mountain Ranch, and gives me a pretty good idea of what to expect from the SP550. They even have samples shot at ISO1600, ISO3200 and ISO 5000.
A more inspiring series of review samples is posted up at DCResource.com. There’s an ISO3200 cat image and ISO800 picture for those who are curious about the high-ISO capabilities of the Olympus. I have to say something here — they’re not pretty when viewed at 100% on the computer (although the church indoor shot is extremely good for an ISO 800 photo from a digicam), but the point is, if you are going to print most of your high ISO shots at 4 x 6 inches, the smearing effects from the camera’s noise reduction algorithms are not going to be very visible. Download the images, have them printed, and see for yourself. In my opinion, the ability to shoot ISO 3200 is a bonus feature to photograph that shot that you couldn’t get otherwise.
SP550 User Images
“Denpa444” currently has, in my opinion, the most interesting SP550 images on Flickr.com.
Here’s an interesting action shot of a leaping Jack Russell terrier. Camera settings for this shot was 1/1000 seconds and ISO 100 in Manual mode.
You can find a huge gallery of SP550 sample photos over at PhotographyVoice.com, and also read through a forum post where the photographer shares his opinions on the camera. He has also made RAW files availabel so that you can manipulate the imae in your favorite RAW editing program — look out for thumbnails with ‘Download RAW Version’ in the caption.
In this heart-warming forum post, Eddie shares a picture of his sleeping granddaughter, and relates how the image stabilization feature on the SP550 was a tremendous help, since he took this photo with no flash, and had to balance himself on only one leg and crutches. The image was shot at 1/10 seconds, ISO400, and if you would like to view the full-sized, original version simply go here and select the Original option for the photo size.
Here’s a gallery of full-sized SP550 macro photographs, unprocessed and straight from the SP550 — many thanks to Lemkeville for shooting these macros!
“Canadian Club” shares a nice variety of SP550 images (there’s even one shot at ISO 1600) which are resized, but went through no other postprocessing.
In this series of bird photos posted by Steve (see also the second set of bird photos), we get to see grebes, swans and ducks. What I found interesting was his comment about the quality of the images being acceptable at maximum digital zoom. Also, the shots were taken at full telephoto zoom. Considering these factors, the images are pretty good.