Olympus Mju Digital 600

(Olympus Stylus 600 in the USA)

Review Date: October 27th 2005

Page 1
Introduction / Price
Page 2
Features
Page 3
Specifications
Page 4
Design
Page 5
Ease of Use
Page 6
Image Quality
Page 7
Sample Images
Page 8
Conclusion / Links

Conclusion


3.5 stars
(out of 5 stars)

The Olympus Mju Digital 600 is a purely point and shoot digital camera which offers a mixture of good looks, numerous scene modes and great playback features to entice the novice user. The Album, Calendar and Title options all help to make this camera more fun. The Olympus Mju Digital 600 is pocketable, quick to react, has a great 2.5 inch LCD screen, and is fairly easy to use.

Noise is the Achilles heel of the Olympus Mju Digital 600. Squeezing 6 megapixels onto a small 1/2.5 inch CCD sensor inevitably results in noisier images at lower ISO speeds. Noise is pretty obvious at ISO 200, which isn't a particularly fast speed, and at ISO 400 and above the image starts to take on a blurry look. This is doubly annoying on the Mju Digital 600, as Olympus actually offer a feature, Image Blur Reduction, that promises to help you out in low-light conditions or when taking pictures of fast moving subjects. Sadly, because the higher ISO speeds are so noisy, I can't recommend using this feature except when there is no other option (like flash or a tripod).

The noise problem is a real shame, as in most other respects the Olympus Mju Digital 600 is a solid bet for the beginner photographer. Other minor niggles that you should be aware of if you can overlook the noise issue include the lack of an optical viewfinder (because of that large LCD screen), a mushy arrow control pad, red-eye and an ineffective red-eye removal feature, only 15fps in the movie mode and the lack of a USB 2 connection. The Olympus Mju Digital 600 is worth considering if you only rarely take photos at ISO 200 or faster.

Related Links

Olympus UK

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Page 1
Introduction / Price
Page 2
Features
Page 3
Specifications
Page 4
Design
Page 5
Ease of Use
Page 6
Image Quality
Page 7
Sample Images
Page 8
Conclusion / Links

DIWAPhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Olympus Mju Digital 600 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.