The Taskmaster
Olympus has yet again come out with technological innovations to drive their camera sales, this time, with a new compact camera, the SH-25MR. What makes this 16-megapixel model special is that it uses ‘ iHS’ technology, which is the term used by Olympus to denote Intelligence, High Sensitivity, and High Speed. And ‘MR’ in the camera’s designation stands for MultiRecording, which means you can capture high- quality still images along with movies.
Design and Build Quality
The Olympus SH-25MR’s exterior is largely made of engineering plastic, except for the front, which is metal. The device looks sturdy and the lens has a
three-segment construction. The touchsensitive LCD screen occupies most of the back panel with only three buttons lining up at the sides along with the fourway controller. The camera has a plastic lens mount, which is at the left end of the base. This is worrying since the off-centre placement can put considerable strain on the tripod mount when the camera is mounted on a tripod.
Key Features
The 16-megapixel Olympus SH-25MR uses a 1/2.4-inch Type (6.16 x 4.62mm) back-illuminated CMOS sensor. The camera features sensor-shift image stabilisation. It uses a 24-300mm equivalent f/3.0 – 5.9 lens. In the Normal mode, the lens focusses from 0.1m to infinity at the wide-angle end and from 0.9m to infinity at the telephoto end, while in Super Macro mode, it focusses as close as 0.01m. Focussing method used is TTL iESP autofocus with contrast detection. Autofocus modes are Face Detect and iESP, Spot, and AF Tracking. The Face Detection feature can track up to eight faces. Metering modes are ESP and Spot. Exposure can be compensated up to +-2 EV in 1/3 EV steps. Shutter speed ranges from 4 to 1/2000 sec while sensitivity ranges
from ISO 80 to 6400. Still images are recorded in JPEG format with maximum pixel resolution of 4608 x 3456. The camera has a continuous shooting speed of 10 frames per second for up to 12 images at full resolution. Movies are recorded in MOV/H.264 format with at best quality of 1080p. The internal flash has a working range of 0.2 to 9.4m ( W) and 0.9 to 4.8m ( T) at ISO 3200. It offers Auto, Red-eye reduction, Fill-in, and Off modes. White Balance modes are Auto, Overcast, Sunlight, Tungsten, Flourescent, and Custom. The shooting modes are i-Auto, Program, P + Movie clip, Scene Modes, Magic Filter, Panorama, Movie, 3D Photos, Multi-Recording, and Beauty & Makeup. Scene modes include Portrait, Landscape, Hand-held Starlight, Night Scene, Night Scene with portrait, Sports, Indoor, Self-portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, Cuisine, Documents, Beach and Snow, Pet (cat), Pet (dog), 3D, and Backlight HDR. The camera offers 12 magic filters, which are Pop art, Pin hole, Fish eye, Drawing, Soft focus, Punk, Sparkle, Water colour, Reflection, Miniature, Fragmented, and Dramatic. The SH-25MR uses a 3.0-inch, 460,000-pixel touch-responsive TFT colour LCD for image display. The camera has 43MB internal memory and accepts an SD/SDHC/SDXC card for external storage. It has a builtin GPS tracker, which can be used for inserting location information into image metadata. The camera is powered by an LI-50B Li-ion battery pack. It weighs 208g including battery and card, and has dimensions of 109.2 x 61.8 x 30.6mm ( WxHxD).
Ergonomics
The Olympus SH-25MR is easy to operate. The menu is straightforward, without any confusing buttons or dials to operate. Images appeared crisp on the display. Though the mode dial is small, it is very smooth to operate. The camera has a well-defined grip, but the grip is plastic, and hence slippery, unlike rubber grips on some cameras. So do not forget to attach the strap while working with this camera.
Performance
The Olympus SH-25MR performed surprisingly well during our tests. AF was fast and precise even under low light. The metering modes performed as expected. Flare was controlled well and we did not observe any chromatic aberration. The lens controlled darkening of corners very well. We did not observe any darkening at the wide-angle end with wide open
aperture (automatically selected by the camera). The images were sharp edge-toedge. The lens did not produce any form of distortion. Both auto and preset White Balance performed well under natural light, i.e., Daylight and Cloudy. While the White Balance performed rather poorly under Fluorescent light, the preset mode in Incandescent provided better results than Auto White Balance. Native image size was 11.52 x 15.36 inches at 300 ppi. At 25 percent screen size, images were free of noise up to ISO 800. Viewed at 50 percent, the images were absolutely noise-free (on visual inspection) up to ISO 400, though it could be used up to ISO 1600. At 100 percent screen size, the images remained noise-free up to ISO 200. The camera can be safely used up to ISO 800 without considerable noise. The GPS tagged the images accurately with location information. We would consider this very good performance for this type of a camera.
Value for Money
The Olympus SH-25MR retails at an MRP of Rs. 21,990. At this price, the camera seems good value for money.