To measure and compare the Olympus SP-550UZ’s noise levels we photographed the standard Gretag Macbeth ColorChecker with it and a number of rival models using their best quality JPEG and default image tone, sharpening and noise reduction settings. The SP-550UZ’s noise reduction is on by default, but we’ve also included samples here with it off for comparison.

The crops are taken from the original images and presented here at 100%. To compare typical noise in skies and dark shadows the crops were taken from patches 3 and 24 respectively.

The Olympus SP-550UZ delivers fairly clean results set to its lowest 50 and 100 ISO settings, with only minimal texturing visible from noise and noise reduction. At 200 ISO this texture becomes more obvious and at 400 ISO it’s quite clear. Increased to 800 ISO, the noise speckles have become quite obtrusive, although it’s interesting to compare it against the Panasonic FZ50 at higher sensitivities as the latter begins to apply considerable noise reduction and smears out detail. If you previously thought the sensors in all cameras were the same, it’s also interesting to compare the Nikon D40’s results here. As a DSLR with a physically bigger sensor, its noise levels are kept low until the very highest sensitivities.

Set to 1600 ISO the SP-550UZ starts applying considerable noise reduction, then for 3200 and 5000 ISO, it also drops the resolution to 3 Megapixels. Even with the reduced resolution though, the results are unsurprisingly nasty at these frankly overly-ambitious settings. Since the plain coloured swatches of the Gretag Macbeth chart can mask a multitude of sins though, be sure to check our real-life outdoor results taken across the SP-550UZ’s entire sensitivity range on the next page.