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

Well, I got mine this morning and it's on it's way back to Amazon tomorrow.

The camera is very well built, it looks and feels the business. I would recommend getting one in black or in green otherwise there's just too much silver going on.

This camera has it's obvious plus points which I won't go into - it's waterproof, there you have it.

I have a lot of pro SLR equipment, so thought that there was little point in trying to get a compact that might try to compete with them on image quality...so instead I thought that a robust compact would be the way forward, something that I could take with me anywhere and not have to worry about if I dropped it.

For this benefit I was prepared to take a hit on the image quality front and decided not to expect too much from this compact. But - when I saw the first batch of test shots I was laughing, they were that poor. Soft all over, highlights blown to bits, very high noise in the darks (even at 100 iso - 400 was really poor). Colours were muted and the barrel distortion and lack of sharpness got very poor near the edges. In short it was terrible.

If you are looking for image quality - look else where.

The video function is just plain irritating. Clips are limited to 10 seconds only at VGA 30 FPS if you are using Olympus's XD 'M' cards (stupid and VERY annoying format), and it's the same using the mini SD to XD converter. If you use the 'rare and hard to get hold of XD 'H' cards', which only seem to come in 1GB sizes - then you can lift that limit. WHY Olympus, WHY?!

Also all sound on the video comes across as if it's been recorded by someone speaking with a rag in their mouth - muted and muffled. Probably because it's designed to work under water.

On the plus side the camera's OS is good, and easy to navigate- it has some really useful features and is good for the novice to enthusiastic armature.

If you really need a camera that works at these depths without a pro case, then this is your only option right now - the pentax W60 does a better job on image quality, but doesn't go as deep as this camera. Other than that I would avoid it and simply either buy a £100 compact and then replace it with another £100 compact when it breaks (still cheaper and better quality than this) or get the W60, or just get a canon ixus and take care of it!

The Panasonic Limux range are also worth it.

Personally I will be getting the Ixus 860 IS and i'll try not to destroy it too quickly :)

I will try this line of cameras from Olympus again in another 2 or 3 generations time, I love the idea of having a camera that can take a battering and get wet, just not at the expense of terrible image quality, which in the end is all that counts.

Like many other reviewers, I chose this camera due to its underwater capabilities - I was off on the holiday of a lifetime to the Galapagos Islands and wanted to take great photos whilst snorkelling as well as photoing the wildlife on land! I'd checked out the camera magazines, and they had confirmed that Olympus led the way in underwater cameras (a reassuringly high overall score of 87%!), so I felt confident in my choice

I too was impressed with the initial results, both on land and underwater. Unfortunately, after only 5 days, the camera just died and simply refused to work after that

Had I relied purely on the Olympus 1030 SW, I'd have been seriously disappointed as I would have missed out on many so many excellent photo opportunities for the second half of my holiday. Luckily, I'd ignored everyone's advice to only take this camera with me, and so was able to still take photos on land with my old camera. Nevertheless, I still missed many great photo opportunities, including the fantastic turtles!

I returned the camera to Argos, who gave me a full refund without argument

On balance, I was disappointed in the camera. I'd had 2 Olympus film cameras in the pre-digital days, and had been very pleased with the results from both. I would consider another underwater Olympus camera, but this time would scour the internet before actually purchasing

I bought the camera mainly because of its waterproof feature as I was going to be doing a lot of snorkeling on holiday.
I took some amazing underwater photos and was truly impressed until day 12 of the holiday when it stopped working. An error message reported that the card slot cover wasn't closed properly, when it was most definitely was. After a few hours of this it completely died which was really annoying.

I did a bit of research when we got home and it appears that a few of the Olympus models have this problem - something to do with the cover sensors.
Knowing this I opted for a refund rather than a replacement - which is another good reason to buy from Amazon :)

I recently purchased this Olympus on the recommendation of a work colleague, but was slightly hesitant due to some of the reviews on flooding.

We have just returned from 2 weeks holiday where it was used whilst snorkelling for in excess of 20 hours in total and it retained its water integrity.

We were always very careful to ensure that the seals were completely clear of hair etc and after each trip followed the cleaning instructions on using clear water etc. I can see how the waterproof integrity would be compromised if you had a cavalier attitude to its maintenance.

Pictures and quality were excellent for a camera of this class both above and below water, low light shooting options actually worked remarkably well as well.

Overall this proved to be an excellent waterproof camera, which also turned out to be a very capable holiday camera, if maintained with a little common sense.

I bought this camera in NYC for my holiday - the panorama setting worked wonders up the empire state building as it merges the photos together in the camera itself, and the underwater settings were amazing when i went on the caribbean. the underwater quality is great for messing about in the pool and taking shots in high vis water.
it is THE perfect holiday camera.
and it's drop proof for those evening when you've had one too many cocktails. what more could a girl ask for?!

note - i recommend buying a floating strap so that if you drop it underawater it will go to the surface, and some lense cleaner so you can clean and protect the lense from the chlorine/salt water.

ENJOY!