The
Olympus Stylus Verve digital camera makes a fashion statement in design and offers the camera in six different colors. It has a contour shape that looks like a camera from the future. Now you can make a fashion statement with a digital camera in the color of black, copper, light blue, red, silver or white. Believe me, some of these colors are bright and will catch the eye of anyone who sees it. I am using a black one and I like the way the black forms with the silver trim of the camera.
The Verve is an all weather camera (not for underwater photos) for taking photos; even in the rain, cold or sunshine. The design of the camera for all weather use makes it easy to wipe dry with a cloth if you do take photos in rainy conditions. Olympus uses a lens that hides inside the camera when in the off position; this protects the lens and there is no lens cap to mess with.
This little fashionable beauty is basically a point and shoot camera, with little adjustments to be made. There are some different modes to set, flash settings, photo resolution and quality; that is basically it. Four out of five people that I know prefer a digital camera that is point and shoot. The Verve is a very small camera that will easily fit in a shirt pocket or purse. It is slightly thicker than one inch; it measures about 3 3/5 inches in width and slightly over 2 inches in height, weighing less than 4 ounces. Price: around $300
Photos & Movies
The Verve allows both photos and movies with sound.
The are six sizes of photos to choose from; 2272 x 1704, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768 and 640 x 480; all in the JPEG format. There are various quality settings with each size. Any size will print a nice 4 x 6 inch photo; to get a nice 8 x 10 inch photo, I recommend at least the 1600 x 1200 setting. I like the best setting of 2272 x 1704 because if I ever want to print a big 16 x 20 inch photo, then the biggest setting is the way to go.
The movies can be made in two sizes, 320 x 240 HQ mode and 160 x 120 SQ mode. Both sizes are at 15 frames per second and it is a QuickTime Movie. The 320 x 240 HQ mode is the way to go and the quality isn't too bad, but they are not the quality of a digital movie camera.
Lens
The built-in lens is a 2X zoom lens with a 4X digital zoom. It is a 5.8mm - 11.6mm lens; equivalent to a 35mm - 70mm lens for a 35mm SLR camera lens. The maximum aperture is F4.9 in telephoto and F3.5 in wide-angle. The lens covers from 20 inches to infinity in wide-angle mode and 8 inches to infinity in the Macro mode. There is a Super Macro mode from 3.5 inches to 8 inches.
The lens works rather well, it has a good range from wide-angle to zoom; I was impressed with the Super macro mode on how close it takes a photo and the clarity of the photo. When using the Super macro mode I find it is best to provide outside light around what you want to take a photo of instead of using the flash. The flash always leaves a bright spot over the photo, which ruins the shot.
LCD
First of all there is no optical viewfinder; you only have an LCD screen for photo taking. The LCD screen does do pretty good under sunlight, but I can bet that when it comes to the sunlight and white beaches on the Emerald coast of Florida, it will be impossible to view the LCD. I know from past experience in Florida with other digital cameras; that when you are out on a white sand beach in bright sunlight, an LCD screen is almost useless. Olympus claims it will work on the beach, so I will test it on my next visit to the Emerald coast of Florida. I tried to test the LCD when we had snow on the ground, but I never did get a good bright sunny day to see how it works against the white snow and sunlight.
The Verve uses a 1.8 inch LCD screen with a display of 134,000 pixels of resolution. They use what they call a Hyper-Crystal LCD made for better viewing in the sunlight.
The LCD is also used for setting up the camera the way you want; photo size, resolution and so on. The other feature the LCD does is playback of the photos and movies. You can set the camera to display thumbnails of 4, 9 or 16 at a time; sixteen is too small for me to view, nine is pretty good. You can also move around the photo and magnify from 1.5 times to 4 times in the area you wish to enlarge.
Modes
The Verve provides several selectable modes for setting the camera for all kinds of situations.
Beach & Snow - for real bright conditions
Behind glass
Candle - very low light conditions
Cuisine
Fireworks - for long shutter speeds
Indoors - for the best indoor results
Landscape
Landscape Plus Portrait
Night scene - for the best night settings
Panorama
Program mode - point & shoot
Portrait
Self-portrait (no self-timer)
Self-Portrait (with self-timer)
Sunset
Flash
The built-in flash does a fair job in the program mode but does a better job when using with the proper program mode.
There are settings of Auto, Fill, Forced Off and Red-Eye Reduction. The recycle time is around 5 seconds with a range of 8 inches to 9 ft. in the wide-angle and 8 inches to 6 ft. in the telephoto.
Indoor flashes in a person's face produced a lot of red-eye in the auto mode; in the red-eye reduction mode it got better, but some photos still produced a little red-eye.
Storage
The Verve uses an xD-Picture card with a 16MB card included. Depending on your photo size and resolution settings; a 16MB card can hold from 5 to about 90 photos and very little movie time. Cards have gotten cheap, so I recommend in investing in a 256MB or 512MB card.
Battery
The one drawback I have with the camera is not being able to use standard AA batteries; this camera is so small and thin that they had to provide a different battery for power.
The Verve use a LI-30B 3.6v 645mAh Li-ion batteries pack that lasts approximately 1 1/2 hours before it needs recharging. I highly recommend buying a second battery, so one will be charged at all times.
What You Get
The Olympus Stylus Verve digital camera
Li-Ion Rechargeable Battery and Charger
16MB xD-Picture Card
USB cable and Audio-Video Cable
Wrist Strap
CD with editing software
Instruction Manual
Other Specifications
4-megapixel effective CCD
Durable metal all-weather body
Shutter speeds from 1/1000 to 1/2 second
ISO sensitivity; Automatic (64 - 250), 64/100/200/400
Built-in all-weather speaker with microphone
Auto-Connect USB
Direct printing to any PictBridge compatible printer
Date/Time Calendar
Self-timer/Remote of 12 seconds
White Balance System
Metering System Digital ESP multi-pattern, Spot
Image Effects of Black and White, Sepia, Resize, Rotation, Fisheye and Soft Focus
My Last Thoughts
What can I say; Olympus has produced some of the best quality digital cameras on the market and the Verve continues the tradition with style, ease of use and crisp, clear, colorful photos.
The colors of the photos have a slightly warm color that is pleasing to view; though the photos turned out crisp and clear. I detected a slight bit more of image noise when using the ISO 400 setting; all the other settings seemed fine. The Macro modes produced fine close ups; I used the Super macro mode and it brought out very clear details of a quarter and dime together. Night shots took a little experimenting, but I liked the best results in the Night Scene mode at ISO 200.
The battery lasted about 1 1/2 hour each time with a range from 40 to 60 photos per charge. Recharging time took over three hours each time. If you plan to take a lot of photos I highly recommend buying an extra battery. There is a shutter lag of about one second between each photo and about two seconds when the battery is getting low.
Over all I am very happy with the quality of the Olympus Stylus Verve in the photos it produces.
Here are some of my other camera reviews!
Canon PowerShot G1 Digital Camera
Casio QV3000EX Digital Camera
Casio QV-2300UX Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix A303 Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix 2800 Digital Camera
Kodak DC215 Zoom Digital Camera
Kodak DC280 Zoom Digital Camera
Kodak DC3400 Zoom Digital Camera
Kodak DX4900 Digital Camera
Minolta Dimage E-201 Digital Camera
Minolta Dimage 7Hi Digital Camera
Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus C-3020 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus C-4040 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-40 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-380 Digital Camera
Olympus Stylus 300 Digital Camera
Olympus Stylus 400 Digital Camera
Pentax Optio 430 Digital Camera
Nikon Coolpix 900-s Digital Camera
Nikon Coolpix 3500 Digital Camera
Sony MVC-FD87 Digital Camera
Sony Mavica MVC-FD95 Digital Camera
Sony DSC-F717 Cyber-shot Digital Camera
Sony DSC-P2 Digital Camera
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P72 Digital Camera
