outdoor scene

To compare real-life performance we shot the same scene with the Olympus Stylus 790 SW and Pentax Optio Z10 within a few moments of each other using their Auto modes, best quality JPEG and lowest ISO settings. The lenses on each camera were adjusted to deliver the same field of view.

The image left was taken with the Olympus Stylus 790 SW at 7mm f5.6 and with a sensitivity of 80 ISO; the original JPEG measured 3.09MB. The crops are taken from the upper left, center, lower right and lower left portions of the originals and presented here at 100%.

The Olympus 790 SW clearly suffers from optical and image processing artefacts in the crops below. The Pentax Z10 is far from the best compact we’ve tested in terms of quality, but despite some coloured fringing, it outperforms the Olympus. The 790 SW is optically soft in the edges and corners, while image processing can render fine details into fuzzy patches. In some areas, such as the buildings in the final crop, it can look acceptable, but in others the results are disappointing. This is however one image, so do make sure you also check our Olympus 790 SW noise results and sample images gallery for more examples. Now let’s check the Olympus 790 SW resolution