A review of the Olympus Mju 1000 digital camera
Olympus seem to know and understand the individual needs and desires of the digital photographer, much more than any other manufacturer out there as all the features they include do exactly what it says on the tin and provide amazing results. The Olympus Mju 1000 is a fantastic example of this, with one of the most impressive features list we have ever seen. That said, this one doesn’t do it all, but is there such a thing as THE perfect digital camera? Design |
| The Olympus Mju 1000 is a weatherproof digital camera that is competitive in its size and appearance to all other digicams of this calibre. With dimensions of 97mm (w) x 56.2mm (h) x 22.7mm (d) and a weight of 140g (no battery) it is very pocketable and must go everywhere with you regardless of the weather conditions as it will withstand the rain, wind and snow. Its sleek silver finish keeps in line with the modern sophisticated look and with some tremendous features, Olympus have definitely not skimped on style. The front of the camera has the 3x optical zoom lens which has a shiny chrome finish to it (beware of scratches) and elegantly protrudes from the body. To the left is an Olympus logo mounted onto a chrome strip (beware of scratches!) which doubles up as a handy finger grip. Above this is the flash. On the top is the shutter release and power button. On the back is the 2.5” LCD screen with an eyebrow raising 230,000 pixels. The zoom rocker is on the right at the top with the mode dial just below. This is situated at the very edge of the body and hangs slightly over so that your thumb can comfortably rotate the dial. Below this is the menu button, LCD button, d-panel and delete button. The buttons are all of good size and are in very easy reach for one handed use. |
| Features |
| The Olympus Mju 1000 boasts a 10 mega pixel CCD so users can be assured of some superbly detailed results along with 3x optical zoom which can be increased to 5x with the camera’s unique Fine Zoom feature found in the easy to use menu interface. The 6.4cm LCD screen is equipped with an impressive 230,000 pixels so framing your subject is enjoyably easy and the playback view is clear and vividly precise. Olympus have included BrightCapture technology with the Mju 1000 which is a massive advantage as not only does it increase the contrast of the LCD by up to 4x so it can be used easily when its gets dark, it boosts the sensitivity of the cameras CCD in low, therefore reducing the need to use the flash, resulting in realistic and amazingly true colours and images. Many of the Olympus Mju 1000’s predecessors have this clever technology and we have only seen spectacular results from each one. Digital Image Stabilisation Edit is an absolute must on a digital camera today, once you have seen the results you will never look back or buy a camera without this feature on again. The results from this camera in particular were great and when we put the before and after images together we could see a massive difference and honestly couldn’t understand how we ever coped without it! Olympus seem to know and understand the individual needs and desires of the digital photographer, much more than any other manufacturer out there as all the features they include do exactly what it says on the tin and provide amazing results. Yet another example of this is the Perfect Fix button, which corrects red-eye, image blur and backlight and not surprisingly, it does it all really well. There is even an alarm clock within the camera with snooze and 3 alarm clock sounds! |
| Performance |
| With such great features, we did expect great things from the performance of the Olympus Mju 1000, unfortunately, we were slightly disappointed. The start-up to shoot time was an average 1.7secs and then 3.3secs between shots thereafter. Shutter lag was a pretty good 0.7secs, increasing to 1.3secs in dim conditions. The burst mode was pretty good too at a speedy 3.8fps. The Mju 1000’s 10 mega pixels really came in to play when assessing image quality and although pictures were crisp and clear with lots of fine detail, there was a distinct purple fringing on some subjects. Unfortunately, we must mention the digital noise that was displayed on many images, especially from ISO 400. Before that, they weren’t too bad at all, but it got worse, a whole lot worse and images were totally unusable at ISO 1,600. Overall, at low ISO settings the images we achieved were of quite a high standard. The battery life isn’t the best at around 175 shots per charge, but we’ve seen worse. |
| What's In The Box? |
| Camera Strap Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery Li-12B Battery charger USB cable Video cable OLYMPUS MASTER (Software CD-ROM) Instruction manuals Warranty card |
| Overall Opinion |
| Overall, the Olympus Mju 1000 is a good performer with some wonderful and thoughtful features that are a must. A few flaws, but like we said, is there such thing as a perfect digital camera? Obviously not. |
| By Hayley Malyon |
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Pros + Great features + 10 mega pixels + BrightCapture Technology + Digital Image Stabilisation + Good LCD resolution |
Cons - Image noise at high ISO settings - Short battery life |
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Picture Quality 8/10
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Battery Life 7/10
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Setup Simplicity 8/10
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Build Quality 8/10
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Ease of Use 8/10
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Overall Rating 
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7/12/2006
at 12:47:29pm
Read Olympus Reviews
| Web Reviews - beta | |||
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Olympus MJU 1000 Video Guide 3 minute video guide to the key features of the Olympus MJU 1000. Plus detailed review and price comparisons... read | |||
cameras.co.uk
31/1/2007 11:36:00am
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Olympus MJU 1000 Review The Olympus MJU 1000 is another camera in the MJU range that comes up short when it comes to picture quality. This is such a shame as this is one of the few weatherproof digital cameras around. With ten megapixels and being small enough to slip into a pocket the specification is a winner... read | |||
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cameras.co.uk
4/12/2006 6:12:00pm
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