OLYMPUS XZ-1

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lympus recently introduced the XZ-1 which completes head on with Canon’s Powershot ‘s’ series. The XZ-1 doesn’t come across as an enthusiast class camera at the first glance. It’s only when you notice the hot shoe for external flash flash and shooting options that you realize it packs some serious meat. The body is all black with the front being metal, and the overall build is excellent.

                The front sports the respectable i.Zuiko lens, which is the first for a digital camera by Olympus. It’s super-bright with a large aperture of F1.8 at the widest end, which is 28 mm. At 4x zoom the focal length extends to 112 mm and the largest aperture you get is an impressive F2.5. Around the lens is a ring similar to that in the Canon PowerShot ‘S’ series. The function of this ring changes depending on the mode being used. The top of the camera sports a mode dial which allows  you to choose between Program, Manual, Art Filters, Scenes, Intelligent Auto, Custom and the simi manual modes. Moving to the left, you have the shutter release button along with the zoom rocker, on/off button and hot shoe for external flash. Like in the PowerShot S100, the flash is housed inside the body and it can be popped uo using a tiny lever behind it. The rear panel is made of plastic with matte finish and is dominated by a large 3-inch OLED display which has a crisp resolution of 614k dots.

                The XZ-1 features a 1/1.63-inch sensor which has an effective resolution of 10 megapixels. The user interface is very intuitive and Olympus has put the jog dial and the ring around the lens to good use. The ring lets you select the ISO in Program mode, shutter speed in Shutter Priority mode and aperture in Manual and Aperture Priority modes. It also lets you select scenes and art filters. The XZ-1 is offers a comfortable single hand grip thanks to the dimpled rubber grip for the thumb. However, it would have been better had there been a curvature or a rubberized grip on the front.

                We tried shooting all sorts of subjects and the reproduction of colors is excellent. An aperture of F1.8 greatly helps in getting good background blur due to shallow depth of field. However, we weren’t too satisfied with the quality of JPEG  images. There’s a loss in detail due to strong compression, which results in minor artifacts/patchiness in areas where fine detailing should have been. The XZ-1 is priced almost at par with the PowerShot S100, which offers similar features and delivers similar results. The biggest advantage you get with the XZ-1 are bright F1.8 lens, OLED display and hot shoe, but you don’t get full HD video recording. The Canon delivers better JPEG images and it has better control over noise at higher ISO values. It also offers higher zoom ratio (5x), higher resolution sensor(12.1 megapixels), better wide angel (24 mm) and GPS. Taking all the factors into consideration, the S100 is definitely a better deal.