Olympus ZX-1 - quick review - first look

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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Olympus XZ-1 - quick review - first look

A quite summary/review, I won't go into great details on its spec, if you want to read up on it. There are plenty of info for that online. The main one that I concern about is

F/1.8 lens (with IS) (F/2.5 at length)
HD 720 video at 30fps
10mp
SD card

First - Size

It is tiny to what i am used to, actually fit in my pocket.

Picture speaks a thousand words.

Aluminium (or some kind of metal alloy) body, well screwed together, the only plastic part is the flash pop up, lens cap, dials and some buttons.





Second - Photo

First outing with it, it cannot be in a more difficult situation. I basically got the camera at 1pm at Birmingham, took the train to London and charge the battery on the way down on the train and in the hotel, then left at 6. Didn't read the manual (can't, the manual is in the CD, not a booklet!) so I winged it like a man would lol

So I went to see Kate Voegele in a gig in Dingwalls in Camden...dark, spot lights (red for that matter, it is a bitch for camera sensors).

I set the ISO to 100, and intend to take more videos than pictures really but I did take some pictures. All these are 1/15th, ISO 100, some at 1.8, some at 2.0 or 2.5.

I shot all the photos from the same spot. (can see in photo 3)

1


2


3


4


I am pretty please with it, considering the condition, first time using it (it means it is not difficult to get to grips with), really good IS capabilities to compensate 1/15th that I was shooting with.

Most of my rejects were blurred shots from her moving as I was shooting at 1/15th.

Third - video

What is odd is the metering, spot metering in particular. Although you can choose different zones to focus, when I used spot metering (had to, 1 singer with spotlight on stage), when shooting video, you get a grid that has a centre part and if I deviate out the main subject out of that centre square, it over expose the singer.

Also, the AF also keep on hunting in video mode in the dark...then later I found out when I got back to the hotel there is a manual focus, although it was too late so I haven't figure out how to use that yet.

Video is pretty good, not had a chance to watch them all yet so may put them up later but pictures wise...not bad eh! All in all considering!
 
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Looks very good I'm interested to see some indoor video with no artificial light to see how it looks. Or some just under normal household in door lighting. I'm struggling to find a decent compact that comes anywhere near our old ixus. That though was not hd.

The lumix we have for hd videos of our son moving about indoors is pretty poor.
 
I shot all at 100ISO so there is no noise issue. I did not use the flash, it is tiny!!!! it will not lit that room lol I shot everything in RAW and processed them a little.

No.3 is my favourite too :)
 
Ahh, thanks. It seems to be a pretty awesome camera, I wish I knew about it before I bought my tz10 which sucks indoors
 
Video, no processing.

1 - Great Image stabilisation. All hand held and I am quite amazed at the lack of camera shake in this!

2 - In 30 seconds in, noticed I went side to side and notice she gets overly exposed soon as she is off centre? Then it recovers when I frame her to the centre again.

3 - The AF hunts sometimes for no reason when it already had focus.

4 - 1m 10s in, the red lights DID NOT flicker. That is caused by either the 30fps against the emission from the lights possibly?

5 - The sound sometimes dips. I am sure i did not cover it as the mic is at the top next to the flash hotshot slot which my fingers never goes near.

Link -

http://vimeo.com/28796831
 
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Get yourself a Richard Franiec grip, Raymond. It greatly improves the handling of the XZ-1.

There's a rather wobbly, flickr-sized video from mine here.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
Video, no processing.....
Click to expand...

Interesting thanks, I think I may take a memory card to a store and get my son to move about and bring the card home and compare.

Off topic mini rant, I know your reasons for wanting to take pictures but geez why do so many people go to festivals etc and spend the whole time recording it on their phones!

It must be great for the artists to look back at a sea of camera phones!

:D
 
dannyjo22 said:
Interesting thanks, I think I may take a memory card to a store and get my son to move about and bring the card home and compare.

Off topic mini rant, I know your reasons for wanting to take pictures but geez why do so many people go to festivals etc and spend the whole time recording it on their phones!

It must be great for the artists to look back at a sea of camera phones!

:D
Click to expand...


I know what you mean, and I tried to limit myself with the number of pictures and videos. Partly because when i am taking photos I am not enjoying the music (people don't realise that). She basically sat on that stool the entire set so the noe photo is basically the same as the next meaning there wasn't a point taking loads. The times when I took them is when the back light changes colour and I know when it looks good and when the camera can't handle it. But that comes from experience in shooting theatre stage. The same thing applies for video, she will be pretty much over exposed the whole time if there is a couple of strong spot light on it. That video is the only 3 mintue one recorded. I don't tend to record songs (no point as I have the CD), but I did record the bits when she talked...

I stood on 3 steps up from the crowd in front of me so those shots and videos are shot from chest height but here was one guy that was in direct line of sight from me down near the front who had an DSLR - a XXXD (pop up flash with rear LCD settings) who kept sticking it up and filming it....grrrrrrrrrrrrrr I was tempted to go over there and tell him to stop, or throw a coin at him or something...if only for the fact that i am crap at throwing and knowing my luck the coin would miss him and hit the singer in the face lol So I KNOW what you mean about the annoyance of people filming it, especially when its above their heads.
 
Raymond Lin said:
4 - 1m 10s in, the red lights DID NOT flicker. That is caused by either the 30fps against the emission from the lights possibly?
Click to expand...


The lights are LED so they use PWM to reduce the light output so would most likely strobe when video'd.


Other than that, that looks like one belter of a camera.
 
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