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Olympus µ1010 compact camera

Silly name aside, this is a quality camera

Using the µ1010 is a doddle - even without an instruction book you’d soon get the hang of most features. Switch-on is fast, smooth and simple, and the µ1010 seems to purr as it prepares for action. Set the control dial in auto mode and you can simply point and shoot. In this mode, the µ1010 will more often than not deliver the goods when it comes to picture quality.

Press the menu button and you are presented with a number of on-screen icons that include set-up, camera menu, image quality and panorama. The set-up function is used for adjusting things such as the clock, video out format (PAL or NTSC) and power save mode. Image quality lets you adjust the image size from ten megapixels (3648 x 2736 resolution) down to VGA (640 x 480), with an option for 16:9 (1920 x 1080) shooting, which is useful if your shots are being displayed on a widescreen HD TV or monitor. You can also opt for fine or normal image compression.

Olympus µ1010 compact camera

Using the µ1010 is a doddle - even without an instruction book

The panorama mode is very smart and offers three options: the camera can automatically take panoramic shots by stitching images together - you simply take a shot, line up two points on the display and the µ1010 does the rest. Or you can take them manually, or create panoramas on a PC, for which Olympus provides the software. That’s the good news.

The bad news: no matter what setting we used, we couldn’t get the panorama function to operate. After much head-scratching we consulted the instruction book, and buried within the text was the news that this function only works with Olympus x-D cards. Ours was a Fujifilm product.

The menu options obviously change depending on your settings. In the semi-automatic mode you can adjust settings such as the white balance, ISO (from 80 to 1600, plus Auto and High ISO Auto), drive (single shot or continuous), AF mode and image stabiliser. The Scene mode provides you with a wide choice of shooting options including food, fireworks, portrait, document, sunset and behind glass.

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