Olympus Mju 840

Amongst the plethora of 8 megapixel digital cameras, it can be hard to make a choice.  Manufacturers have to think of new and ingenious ways to set themselves apart from the competition.  Olympus is no exception to the rule and they have released this colored compact (we received the quite pink looking model) equipped with an intriguing 5x optical zoom.  Will this be enough for the Mju 840 to impose itself?

Handling

Available in different colors, the Mju 840 has a truly nice design and finishing touches.  On the back there is a 2.7 inch screen (fluid in good lighting) and average sized buttons that both help in making this camera pleasant to use.  Navigation is entirely classic with the presence of a menu and dial that enables making the necessary adjustments.  Olympus has "borrowed" menu ergonomics from Canon (practically the leader in this area for compacts) and the Mju 840 is easily configured and very intuitive.  In terms of speed, autofocus in full sun is quite fast (much less so in low light) and startup takes less than a second.  In the end, it’s a very pleasant camera to use.

Quality of images

Overall, image quality is satisfactory; however, we did notice a few weaknesses.  On A4 prints, the result is good in terms of the level of detail but color rendering is reddish.  In addition, we noticed the presence of purple fringes although these are relatively harmless.  Noise control is in the low average and while billowing is rather well controlled up until 400 ISO, smoothing can be seen at 100 ISO.  Otherwise, the macro mode is good (3 cm).  In terms of video, although quality is satisfactory in 640 x 480, recording time is limited to only 10 seconds.  This isn’t much!