Introduction

Ease of Use

The Olympus XZ-2 is a serious proposition which offers full manual control over the picture-taking process. Similar in both size and weight to the Samsung EX2F, the XZ-2 has grown a little when compared to its predecessor mainly because of the inclusion of a tilting LCD screen, but it's still a fairly slim yet substantial affair made of a combination of metal and plastics.

The XZ-2 now sports a removable grip (actually the same one as used on recent PEN compact system cameras) and consequently feels surprisingly good in the hand, thanks to thoughtful ideas like a small but well placed thumb rest on the rear panel. The design manages to be functional and classy at the same time, with an almost minimalist front plate that nevertheless includes a highly useful click-stop dial around the lens housing; a top plate featuring a hot shoe, power button, shutter release, zoom lever and mode dial; and a rear panel dominated by the new high-resolution, touch-sensitive LCD display.

The XZ-2 new touchscreen can be configured in one of three ways - turned off, one-touch focusing, or simultaneous one-touch focusing and shutter release. It also enables you to interact with the camera's key settings in addition to setting the focusing point and fire the shutter via the onscreen Super Control Panel. One small limitation is the inability to focus right at the extreme edges of the frame - you're effectively limited to one of the 35 AF points that the XZ-2 offers.

A crucial element of the design is a rear control wheel around the four-way pad, which is used to set shutter speed in manual mode, exposure compensation in a number of other modes, and can also be used to navigate menus. The XZ-2 is too bulky to be carried comfortably in a shirt- or jeans pocket, but will happily fit into a small belt pouch or jacket pocket. Alternatively, it can be worn around the neck courtesy of a pair of well placed eyelets and a nice neck strap that ships with the camera.

The number one attraction of the Olympus XZ-2 is undoubtedly its ultra-fast, 28-112mm equivalent zoom lens. The company is heavily touting the f/1.8 maximum aperture at the 28mm end, but it's not so unique as it may seem at first glance - both the Samsung EX2F and Panasonic LX7 have lenses with a slightly faster f/1.4 at the wide end, not to mention that both offer a wider, 24mm equivalent field of view.

Front	Rear

The telephoto end is a lot more interesting: the Samsung maxes out at 80mm, the Panasonic at 90mm, with only the Canon Powershot S110 going as far as 120mm (equivalent) - but at f/5.9, it's much slower than the Olympus, which boasts a maximum aperture of f/2.5 at the 112mm end. As you can see from some of our sample images, this translates into a surprising (for a compact camera) ability to isolate the subject from the background, resulting in images reminiscent of those taken with cameras sporting much bigger sensors. The zoom range can be further increased by attaching the TCON-17 conversion lens (note that you need the CLA-12 adapter for this). The lens is protected by the matching black LC-63A lens cap that cleverly opens and closes automatically whenever you activate the camera.

Subject isolation aside, the biggest benefit of a super-fast lens - combined with sensor-shift image stabilisation - is the ability to take hand-held shots in low light, without having to dial in crazy-high ISO sensitivity settings. This is important, as the 1/1.7” CMOS - despite being bigger than the imaging chips built into most point-and-shoots - is still very small compared to the sensors used in DSLRs.

The other big attraction of the Olympus XZ-2 is the presence of a full manual exposure mode, complete with a live histogram and raw file support. This mode is very well implemented in the XZ-2, and is therefore likely to become the preferred shooting mode for advanced users. In M mode, the click-stop dial encircling the lens housing controls the aperture, while shutter speed can be set with the scroll wheel around the four-way pad. In order to avoid accidentally bumping this wheel, you first have to hit the Up button on the navigation pad before you can modify the shutter speed setting. The live histogram - as well as a helpful compositional grid - can be activated with the Info button. The fly in the ointment is that the camera still doesn't offer direct-button access to ISO sensitivity settings. You need to enter the function menu - called “live control” by Olympus - to do that. That's a shame, although the new Fn2 button on the front of the camera can be configured to change the ISO amongst up to 16 different options.

Also present and correct are the usual aperture and shutter priority modes, in which the corresponding exposure variable is controlled via the front dial, with the rear wheel now serving for exposure compensation. Finally, in P mode you now get to control Program AE shift via the front dial, with the ability to change the aperture and override the camera's own settings.

Other shooting modes on the mode dial include Scene, iAuto, Art, and two Custom modes. The Olympus XZ-2 offers eighteen scene modes, most of which are standard fare like Portrait, Landscape, Sport etc. A few of the scene modes are more special though - these include Multi Exposure, Panorama, E-Portrait and Backlight HDR. Multi Exposure has nothing to do with HDR imaging - it's a feature inherited from the film era, which allows you to record and combine two completely different images into a single photo.

Front	Top

The Panorama mode works exactly the same way as on some of the more recent Mju compacts: there are three options on offer, including Auto, Manual and PC. In Auto mode, you only have to press the shutter release once. After that, all you need to do is move the camera to the next position, so that the target marks and pointers overlap, and the camera automatically releases the shutter for you. Three frames can be taken this way, which are then combined into a single panoramic image automatically in-camera. In Manual mode, you can also take three frames with the help of an on-screen guide, but you have to release the shutter manually. Finally, in PC mode, you can take up to 10 photos, which can be stitched using the supplied [ib] software after being downloaded to the computer.

E-Portrait is an on-board solution to touch up portraits. In this mode, you take a picture of a person, then the camera identifies the face and tries to remove blemishes and other minor imperfections, giving the skin a smooth look in the process. The resulting image is then saved alongside the original. The Backlight HDR combines several frames taken at different exposures into a single image with greater detail in the shadow and highlight areas.

The iAuto mode is a fully automatic shooting mode in which the camera analyses the scene in front of its lens, and tries to decide which scene mode to apply. Most of the typical camera controls/functions are inaccessible while you are in iAuto, but there is a live guide featuring on-screen sliders to modify things like saturation, colour, image brightness and depth of field. Additionally, the camera offers up various shooting tips on demand.

The Art setting on the mode dial lets you choose from 11 Art Filters that include Pop Art, Diorama, Grainy Film, Soft Focus, Pinhole and Dramatic Tone. The optimum shooting settings are preprogrammed for each filter, and you have very little control over the final look. Because of this, it is worth shooting RAW+JPEG, as the raw files can be modified later if you do not like the effect. You can see some examples of these art filters at work in the Image Quality section of this review.

Of probably more interest to serious shooters are the Custom Mode settings, denoted with a “C1” and “C2” on the mode dial. These allow you to retrieve your saved settings, which is great if you often find yourself shooting under the same conditions. To save your current settings, go to the Setup menu, select Custom Mode Setup, and hit Set.

As mentioned earlier, most of the shooting settings and functions are available from the “live control”, a function menu called up by pressing the OK button that sits in the middle of the four-way pad. The range of available functions may differ slightly depending on the shooting mode you are in, but the full list includes the following: image stabilisation, picture mode, white balance, drive mode, aspect ratio, image quality and resolution, movie quality, flash mode, flash exposure compensation, metering mode, auto focus mode, ISO speed, face priority, and ND filter.

Pop-up Flash	Tilting LCD Screen

Most of these are self explanatory. The ND filter is an integrated 3-stop neutral density filter, which can be engaged when shooting in very bright light - with the top shutter speed being only 1/2000 of a second, it is sometimes necessary to use this filter when you would like to pick a wide aperture for a shallow depth-of-field effect, otherwise the photo would be overexposed even at the lowest ISO sensitivity setting.

The Olympus XZ-2 has a neat little pop-up flash that can be raised manually, by way of the sliding switch sitting in the top left corner of the camera's back plate. Apart from providing a bit of fill light for backlit subjects, this flash can also trigger up to three groups of wirelessly slaved FL-36R flashguns, which offer TTL flash exposure metering with the XZ-2. Alternatively, the user can attach one of a number of system flashes to the camera via its hot shoe. Third-party flash units can also be attached as long as their trigger voltage is below 24 volts. Importantly, it's possible to sync these flashes right up to the fastest shutter speed of 1/2000 of a second, although their range will be somewhat limited above 1/500 s. The official specifications do not mention the type of shutter used in the Olympus XZ-2 but it's definitely not a focal plane shutter, so there will be no black stripes across the frame when using a flash at a high shutter speed.

Below the hot shoe is an accessory port identical to the one found on the Olympus E-P3 and E-PL2 models. This allows you to attach a number of optional accessories originally developed for these cameras, including the VF-2 electronic viewfinder, the SEMA-1 microphone adapter set and the MAL-1 macro lights. Needless to say, only one of these can be attached at a time.

In use, we found the large, high-resolution LCD screen to be eminently usable, with great detail and excellent colour retention even when viewed from the most extreme angles - but there can be times when an eye-level finder could still come in handy, such as when shooting in extremely bright light, or in very low light when pressing the finder against your forehead can provide some extra stabilisation. Those suffering from far-sightedness will also appreciate the VF-2, which offers some degree of dioptre adjustment. The new LCD can be tilted up or down, not quite as useful as a side-hinged model, but still helpful for capturing shots from a high or low angle.

Some of the shooting functions are mapped onto the four-way pad, including focus mode and AF point selection, drive mode and self-timer, and flash mode. To change the active AF point, press the Left arrow button, and pick one, nine or all of the 35 auto focus points using the arrow keys - simple and effective.

The available focus mode settings are “normal” AF, when the focus range is limited to 60cm-infinity, allowing the camera to acquire focus surprisingly quickly; Macro AF, which lets you focus down to 10cm at the wide end and 30cm at full telephoto; Supermacro AF, which disables the zoom and the built-in flash but allows you to focus as close as 1cm from the front lens; Tracking AF which tracks the selected subject as it moves across the frame; and MF.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

The inclusion of manual focus is a nod towards experienced photographers, who will appreciate this feature. To switch to Manual Focus, you pull the new lever on front of the camera to the left, which automatically enlarges the centre of the image for accurate focusing. This is now more intuitively performed with the front control dial and also displays a distance scale, which proves very useful for zone focusing. Shutter lag in MF mode is negligible. For those who prefer auto focus, there is an AF assist light that enables the camera to focus even in low light. This lamp can be disabled if necessary.

As far as drive modes are concerned, there are no less than 3 different continuous shooting modes on offer: the “regular” sequential shooting is at 5 frames per second at full resolution, and there's a High-Speed option available at a reduced resolution setting.

Besides capturing stills, the Olympus XZ-2 can also record HD videos, and has a dedicated movie record button in the top right corner of the rear panel for one-touch video recording. Unfortunately the camera offers precious little in the way of video controls. You can apply exposure compensation before starting to record a video clip, but that's about it. On a more positive note, you can use the optical zoom while filming, and can also have the camera apply any of the Art Filters to movies on the fly. The XZ-2 tries its best to keep the subject in focus while recording a video clip, but doesn't always succeed. Movies are stored in MOV(MPEG-4AVC/H.264) format and clip length is limited to 29 minutes.

When it comes to playing back your images, the Olympus XZ-2 offers three main playback views: picture only, photo with image number and date, and a thumbnail with detailed information and a very useful RGB histogram. There is also an optional blinking highlights warning.

The Olympus XZ-2 is powered by a proprietary lithium-ion battery, which can be charged in-camera via USB. You need to connect the USB cable either to a computer running Windows 7/8, Vista or XP; or to the supplied USB-AC adapter, which must, in turn, be plugged into a mains socket using a mains cable. So unless you want to charge the battery via a Windows computer, you will need two cables, an adapter, and the camera itself. Olympus does offer a conventional external charger as well, but only as an optional accessory.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 5Mb.

The Olympus XZ-2 produced images of excellent quality during the review period. JPEGs taken at the base sensitivity of ISO 100 exhibit great colour and nice tonality, and strike a good balance between noise reduction and detail retention.

High-ISO performance is broadly in line with what you could reasonably expect from a sensor of this size. In JPEGs, the effects of noise reduction become apparent at ISO 1600 and above, whilst the raw files contain quite a lot of noise (though they do retain detail better than the out-of-camera JPEGs). ISO 3200 is borderline usable for small prints, whereas the highest settings of ISO 6400 and 12800 are really only there to beef up the spec sheet.

Thankfully with an f/1.8-2.5 lens and sensor-shift image stabilisation on board, you will hardly ever need to shoot at these high sensitivity settings anyway. The fast lens not only allows you to use low ISOs in dim lighting, it also provides for good subject-background separation, something most digital compacts can't really achieve. Overall, a very strong performance for its class.

Noise

The base sensitivity setting is ISO 100, with the maximum being ISO 12800. You can dial in any value in between these two extremes in third-stop increments. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each “full” ISO setting.

JPEG	RAW
ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 100 (100% Crop)
ISO 200 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 400 (100% Crop)
ISO 800 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 1600 (100% Crop)
ISO 3200 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)	ISO 6400 (100% Crop)
ISO 12800 (100% Crop)	ISO 12800 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The 4x i.Zuiko lens offers a fairly versatile focal range, as demonstrated by these examples.

28mm	112mm

Sharpening

The out-of-camera JPEGs are fairly sharp at the default sharpening setting, but still benefit from a little extra sharpening in a photo editor. Alternatively, you can change the in-camera sharpening level to suit your needs better. Here are two 100% crops - the right-hand image has had some extra sharpening applied.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

At full resolution, the Olympus XZ-2 allows you to choose from two JPG quality settings, Normal and Fine. Additionally, the camera supports raw capture, and simultaneous recording of JPEG and raw files is also possible.

12M Fine 5.52Mb) (100% Crop)	12M Normal (2.98Mb) (100% Crop)
12M RAW (18.4Mb) (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Olympus XZ-2 handled chromatic aberrations well during the review, with limited purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the examples below.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Olympus XZ-2 has both a Macro and a Supermacro mode, albeit the zoom can only be used in the former. The shot below demonstrates how close you can get to the subject, in this case, a Compact Flash card.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The Olympus XZ-2 has a pop-up flash that can be raised manually by way of the sliding switch sitting in the top left corner of the camera's back plate. Apart from providing a bit of fill light for backlit subjects, this flash can also trigger up to three groups of wirelessly slaved FL-36R flashguns, which offer TTL flash exposure metering with the XZ-2. Note that because of the placement of the pop-up flash, extra care must be taken to prevent a finger from blocking the flash, particularly when holding the camera in portrait orientation. These shots of a white-coloured ceiling were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)	Forced Flash - Wide Angle (28mm)
Suppressed Flash - Telephoto (112mm)	Forced Flash - Telephoto (112mm)

And here are some portrait shots. As you can see, neither the Flash On or the Red-eye Flash settings caused any red-eye.

Forced Flash	Forced Flash (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction Auto	Red-eye Reduction Auto (100% Crop)

Night

The Olympus XZ-2 allows you to dial in exposure times as long as 60 seconds, and has a Bulb mode for exposures lasting as long as 16 minutes, which is very good news if you are seriously interested in night photography. The example below was taken at a shutter speed of 15 seconds at ISO 100.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Anti Shake

The Olympus XZ-2 has a sensor-shift image stabilisation mechanism, which allows you to take sharp photos at shutter speeds that are critically slow for the focal length used. To test this, we took 2 hand-held shots of the same subject at both ends of the zoom range with the same settings. The first shot was taken with image stabilisation turned off, the second with it turned on.

Shutter Speed / Focal Length	Anti Shake Off (100% Crop)	Anti Shake On (100% Crop)
1/8th / 28mm
1/6th / 112mm

Multiple Exposure

The Olympus XZ-2 can combine two seperate frames taken sequentially into one to create a multi-exposure picture.

Multiple Exposure

Backlight HDR

The Backlight HDR scene mode takes several images at various exposure levels and blends them into one with optimal exposure and dynamic range.

Backlight HDR On	Backlight HDR Off

Art Filters

The Olympus XZ-2 offers 11 Art Filters including Pop Art, Soft Focus, Grainy Film, Pinhole, Diorama and Dramatic Tone. These can be applied to both stills and movie clips.

Pop Art	Soft Focus
Pale&Light Color	Light Tone
Grainy Film	Pin Hole
Diorama	Cross Process
Gentle Sepia	Dramatic Tone
Key Line

Picture Modes

Olympus' Picture Modes are preset combinations of contrast, sharpness, gradation and saturation. There are five Picture Modes to choose from, including Vivid, Neutral, Muted, Portrait and Monotone. All of these can be tailored to your tastes.

Vivid	Neutral
Muted	Portrait
Monotone

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Olympus XZ-2 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Olympus XZ-2 enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Olympus RAW (ORF) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Flash Raised

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Rear of the Camera / Turned On

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Rear of the Camera / OK Menu

Tilting LCD Screen

Tilting LCD Screen

Tilting LCD Screen

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

Olympus have principally added a better image sensor, touchscreen functionality, removable grip, a versatile tilting LCD screen, FlashAir technology, clever lens control ring and more customisable controls to their premium compact camera. It may be a little bigger than its predecessor, so much so that it's now a stretch to call it pocketable, and the price has substantially risen, but in most regards the XZ-2 in an excellent successor to the already high-performing XZ-1.

The XZ-2 performs even better than its excellent predecessor in the image quality department, owing to that fast and sharp i.Zuiko lens, a new back illuminated CMOS sensor and the same TruPic VI image processor used in th PEN range, all of which combines to turn out JPEGs with very pleasing colours, excellent sharpness and good overall tonality. High ISO is also much improved compared to the previous XZ-1, and with an f/1.8-2.5 lens and image stabilisation on board, the XZ-2 can certainly cope with most lighting environments. Video, on the other hand, is still a mixed bag. It's good to be able to use the optical zoom while filming and apply Art Filters to the footage in-camera, but in a product of this calibre you would expect user selectable frame rates and full manual control over video exposure.

The XZ-2 ticks most of the boxes that any experienced photographer is looking for - “sensible” 12 megapixel count, a very fast lens, raw file support, a reliable 35 multi-point AF system and a well implemented manual exposure mode complete with an optional live histogram. Add in the high-resolution, tilting LCD screen, touchscreen controls, the innovative lens control ring, and an image processor that's fast enough to avoid any major freeze-ups even when shooting RAW+JPEG simultaneously, and you have a very capable yet portable camera that you can take pretty much anywhere.

Perhaps the biggest threat to the Olympus XZ-2 is not its main premium compact rivals - the Sony Cyber-shot RX100, Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7, Canon PowerShot G1X and Samsung EX2F, for example - but the new breed of compact system cameras, including Olympus' own E-PL5 that we recently reviewed. With the size and the price of the XZ-2 both increasing for 2013, those two boundaries are no longer quite so clear cut. Still, so much choice is definitely a good thing, and the new Olympus XZ-2 makes a great case for a place on your shopping shortlist...

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4.5
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4.5
Value for money	3.5

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Olympus XZ-2 from around the web.

Specifications

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