Home > Consumer Reviews > Olympus Mju 1030SW Digital Camera - Midnight Black (10.1MP, 3.6x Digital Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD

Just received this camera today (monday morning, having ordered it on Friday night!) and so far I love it!

I used to have a sony cybershot 3.2mp and decided that it was time to update. I wanted something small and robust as I have 3 small children and a dog and we are out and about all the time, so this seems to fit the bill perfectly.

I am an absolute amateur and haven't got a clue about photography, but I know what i like and am so far thrilled with the photos I have taken. They are millions of times better than my old sony. I notice that this camera takes them very quickly as opposed to the sony where there was a delay between pressing the button and the photo being taken resulting in lots of photos of the tops of my childrens heads or their feet as they disappeared from the shot! This is so much better in this respect - much more of a chance of getting a good photo!

The camera is neat and small, but feels nice and solid. The zoom is virtually silent and it has lots of very easy to use and understand settings.

I'm sure there are experts who will disagree, but if you want a small robust camera that is easy to use and takes great photos then I don't think you can go wrong with this!

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R36O5TUZKHDLOE Video footage taken in Sharm El Sheikh using the Olympus 1030 SW camera and an M+ XD picture card which lets you take videos for more than 10 seconds in VGA mode. The 2GB card I have allowed 18mins of continuous video. I was diving around 7 meters with no problems, the camera claims to go as deep as 10. The underwater photos the camera takes are also superb. There is no commentary on the video, let the footage speak for itself.

I bought this camera because I've got a new pond and wanted to take pictures of the plants and wildlife.

The camera is extremely good underwater. I haven't tried it in dim light yet, but I got some excellent underwater shots when the pond had the sun on it. The only drawback, which is very minor, is that if I want to take pictures at the edge of the pond, I have to take them upside-down, as the lens is at the top of the camera. It's perfectly simple to turn them the right way up, though - the software that comes with it is up to Olympus's usual high standard and is very easy to use.

The camera also takes very good macro shots out of the water (flowers, for example) and reproduces colour well - blues are particularly good.

This is fantastic as a point and shoot camera - the picture quality and colour reproduction is excellent, at last a compact that produces reds accurately! The 28mm wide angle zoom is very useful and it takes cracking pictures just by using auto mode. It fits in your pocket and is great for handing to your 5 year old and letting them express their photographic creativity, as you don;t have to worry about it getting damaged. This has given me very satisfying underwater shots, sunsets, landscapes, action scenes e.g sports day, kids running about and indoor scenes. The only two minor niggles I have are that the image stabilser is digital rather than optical so can't be used in all modes and I would have liked some control over aperture and shutter speed. Still, I am happy to live without these as everything else about this camera is brilliant. I must also add that its macro mode is A*, focussing correctly first time capturing all the colour and detail your eye can see for close ups of flowers etc. Hard to be anything other than very happy with this; and that's coming from someone who makes picking holes in things an art form.

Bought the camera a couple of weeks ago as a replacement for a previous rugged olympus camera that was stolen from my wife during a trip to London. Very impressed with the upgrade. All seems good so far, although I haven't tested it in the water yet. Higher resolution, bigger screen, better controls than the one I had and now with the ability to use micro SD cards. I bought a 6GB san disk card for less than the XD and it allows me to standardise on the SD standard for all my cameras, which is great. Thing I love most about the camera is the fact that (other than diving) you just can take it anywhere without worrying about rain or a few knocks. The previous one I used whilst kayaking all the time and it used to just sit in the front of my bouyancy aid taking the knocks and the swims. The only negative thing I would have to say is the annoying fact that olympus insists on disabiling some of the camera function (panorama only I think) unless you use the official olympus XD card as a way of making a few more quid out of people, but you can take the photos on the camera and stitch them on they computer instead so no big loss. Overall a great camera that you don't have to think twice about taking with you.