Zoom Wars!

[Rick Dreher]

Olympus carpet-bombed us with a host of new cameras today, including an 18X zoom model.

The good news is that it's fairly wide, being a 28-504 equivalent, and reasonably fast at f/2.8-4.5, and has image stabilization (it had better!).

I will remain in the skeptics bleachers as to the optical quality of such a beast, which heretofore would have only appeared on a video camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012507olympusp550uz.asp

The competition is now obgliged to launch a 20X zoom. Can't wait.

[Elliot Lockwood]

Aww, but it appears to not have threads for mounting a 2x teleconverter!!

[Roger B]

Just when I had decided which camera to buy, Olympus comes along and disturbs my thinking.

I am still inclined to go down the Pentax K 10D path, not UL, but a great camera

[Victor Karpenko]

Looks like a camera with a lot of capability. I am surprised that with all of the scene modes,it doesn't have panoramic capability. Even their small digital cameras have it. I took this one with pocket digital.

[Franco Darioli]

The SP550 should be available in a few weeks, till than we can speculate, small sensor (1/2.5") but could still deliver in most light levels. Sony will announce soon a couple of 15x zoom cameras very similar in size to the H5, and Panasonic will replace the TZ1 (10x zoom,very compact) with a version starting at 28mm.So , yes it is open warfare on the long range.
Franco

[Franco Darioli]

The Panasonic TZ2 has been announced. See details at http://www.dpreview.com/

Franco

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