Monday, August 25, 2008

Suprise announcement - Olympus SP-565uz

Olympus SP-570 has been on the market for only a couple of months, but Olympus already announced a followup, Olympus SP-565uz. The specs are quite similar, but the camera is smaller, and I guess a bit more targeted to the point-and-shoot users. I hope image quality is better than in SP-570, though. Perhaps Panasonic DMC-TZ28 will get a good competitor in SP-565?

Also interesting is the marketing message from Olympus, pointing out especially the small size of the camera. This seems to be a point of pride to Olympus.

Update: It seems that SP-565 is in fact slightly heavier and larger than SP-570. And the specifications haven't much changed. What is different? Image quality?

Update 2: Actually, SP-565 is smaller and lighter that SP-570, but it is bigger and heavier that SP-560. My confusion was caused by Dpreview listing the wrong (SP-560) size and weight specifications for SP-570.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Well well well......

Anonymous said...

Actually, this announcement came as know surprise to me... I've been waiting for this camera to be released. The 570UZ was the only P&S model on the market with a zoom over 14x and a hot shoe. If you've looked up the release dates for all of the other Olympus Ultrazooms in recent years, you'd have noticed that they all occured in January and the last week of August. The only surprise was that it wasn't designated the 580UZ. I suppose they are trying to emphasize that the size is smaller than the 570. The good news is that they're finally making accomodations for SD cards, just as I suspected they would. Now it just remains to be seen if the zoom/focus ring useability has been improved.

Juha Haataja said...

Looking at the photos of SP-565, it seems that the hot shoe is no longer included. Definetely a step backwards.

Anonymous said...

Looking at this Accessory page from Olympus, it states that the 565UZ does have a hotshoe. If the photos of the camera are accurate, I can only assume it has a removable cover. We'll just have to wait for the reviews to come in to learn whether or not its performance is any improvement over the much-criticized 570UZ.

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1393&fl=5&acccategory=49

Juha Haataja said...

Thanks for pointing this out. I know users who are quite happy with SP-570, but currently it seems that Panasonic DMC-FZ28 beats it handily. But the new SP-565 is smaller and lighter, so there is some advantage to Olympus.

Anonymous said...

The ability to use standard AA batteries, and either conventional or wireless external flash sets this new entry from Olympus apart from its competitors, such as the Panasonic you mention or the Nikon P80.