Olympus C-500 Zoom

Review Date: May 5th 2005

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the SHQ 2560x1920 image mode setting, which gives an average image size of around 3Mb.

Noise

There are 4 ISO settings available on the Olympus C-500 Zoom which you can select at any time. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:

ISO 50 (100% crop)	ISO 100 (100% crop)
ISO 200 (100% crop)	ISO 400 (100% crop)

The noise levels look excellent at ISOs 50 and 100, showing little noise. ISO 200 is quite noisy though, with fine detail being lost, and I would only use the fastest setting of ISO 400 as a last resort. An average performance by the Olympus C-500 Zoom.

Sharpening

You cannot change the sharpening level on the Olympus C-500 Zoom. Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Adobe Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are quite soft, with post-processing showing some extra detail, so you will have to either accept the soft images or edit them all in Photoshop or a similar program later.

Original 100% Crop	Sharpened 100% Crop

File Quality

The Olympus C-500 Zoom has 4 different image size/ quality settings - SHQ (2560 x 1920px), HQ (2560 x 1920px), SQ1 (1600 x 1200px) and SQ2 (640 x 480px). Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various settings, with the file size shown in brackets.

SHQ (2560 x 1920px) (2.69Mb)	HQ (2560 x 1920px) (845.8Kb)
SQ1 (1600 x 1200px) (424.3Kb)	SQ2 (640 x 480px) (71.2Kb)

Chromatic Aberrations

I only found a few examples of chromatic aberrations in the review shots taken with the Olympus C-500 Zoom. You can see a faint purple-fringing around the edges of the round window and the roof structure against the very high-contrast sky, but it's not too obvious at all. The stone sculpture in example 3 has a faint turquoise edge, but again you have to look pretty hard to see it. A good performance by the Olympus C-500 Zoom.

Example 1	Example 2
Example 3

Macro

The Olympus C-500 Zoom has a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 4cms away from the camera. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot (click to view full-sized image)	100% Crop

Flash

The flash options on the Olympus C-500 Zoom are Auto, Auto with Red-eye Reduction (Advanced Red-eye Reduction), Anytime Flash, Flash Cancel and Slow sync. These shots of a white wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Flash Off - Wide Angle (38mm)	Auto Flash - Wide Angle (38mm)
Flash Off - Telephoto (114mm)	Auto Flash - Telephoto (114mm)

And here are some shots of yours truly. The camera got the overall exposure right in both flash modes, and neither mode produced any discernible redeye.

Flash On	Flash On (100% Crop)
Flash - Red-Eye Reduction	Flash - Red-Eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night Shot

The Olympus C-500 Zoom's maximum shutter speed is 15 seconds which is good news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The following example was taken using the Manual exposure mode, with a shutter speed of 10 seconds and an aperture of f/4 at ISO 50. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.

Night Shot (click to view full-sized image)	100% Crop

Overall Image Quality

The Olympus C-500 Zoom produced an average set of test images. The 5 megapixel photos are quite soft out of the camera and benefit from further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop. You cannot change the sharpening level in-camera, so you will either have to accept the soft images or edit them all in Photoshop or a similar program later. Noise was well controlled at ISO 50-100, but ISO 200 exhibited some obvious noise that removed fine detail from the image and ISO 400 is really a last resort option. The built-in flash got the exposure right indoors and there was no evidence of redeye. The maximum shutter speed of 15 seconds means that there is a lot of potential for night photography. The Olympus C-500 Zoom dealt well enough with chromatic aberrations, which only appeared in a few images and even then was barely noticeable. Macro performance was good, allowing you get as close as 4 cms away from your subject.

PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Olympus C-500 Zoom have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.