Olympus - Stylus 820 Digital Camera Review

I really love my little red Olympus Stylus 820. It is an eight megapixel 5X zoom camera that is compact and easy to take anywhere. I like it so much better than lugging my huge manual camera everywhere to conventions and on vacation. Instead of a seperate bag for my camera I can just slip it in my purse or pocket and go anywhere. Everyone in my family likes it and wants to borrow it!

Some of the features I enjoy the most are the hyper LCD screen which is very clear and large enough (roughly 2 by two and a half) for even my elderly family members to see clearly. It pans and adjusts in real time so you can see exactly what you are shooting and align it just right. The other thing I really love is the easy to use menu function. The buttons are pretty staightforward once your learn them and you can tab through all your pictures to look at them one by one. Or there is a cute feature where you can make it feature a neat little slide show with fade in, scroll, etc. complete with music! Then when you are finished you can delete the pictures that you no longer want from your memory card without having to hook the camera to a computer. And you don't have to format the whole card to get more space.

In addition, there is an anti shake feature on the camera, a red eye reduction feature and an "perfect fix" feature that will automatically fix the lighting and red eye in your photos before you print them. And you can print directly from the camera. In the menu function you can adjust the order of the photos and which ones to print.

There are also several shooting modes varying from available light to portrait, indoor, beach and snow, auction, candle, sport, night scene, night portrait, landscape and more. The camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed by itself so there is no fiddleing or guesswork. And there is a built in shooting guide in the menu to help you out if you get stuck. There is also a Movie Mode for shooting moving objects or sports events.

I have had this camera for about two years and it has been trouble free. Other than having to charge the battery a little more frequently now it has performed well. I have even taken pictures of my christmas tree at night with it and you can see the branches and the lights instead of a giant blurr. Overall an excellent camera for the money.