Olympus Mju 9010 Review

A Post By: Barrie Smith

Some digicams hit the shelves and at first appear to be run-of-the-mill compacts with little to offer. How blasé can you get!

This is one of those: the zoom is a 10x lens; it has 2GB of internal memory, so you may never need a memory card; 14 megapixel capture lets you shoot a maximum size of 4288×3216 pixels and make a 36x27cm print; you can shoot MPEG4 movies at 1280×720 pixel resolution; face detection can handle up to 16 faces.

The camera is slim in shape, available in black only and has a 6.9cm LCD screen but no optical finder; surprisingly, the lens, when extended, adds only 27mm to the body thickness. Operationally, the camera is a doddle and would please absolute beginners desperate to get a long zoom camera; simple in configuration and light in weight it has nine external controls, backed up by a comprehensive finder menu.

The top surface is where you find the main shutter button (for stills) and the rear is where the movie record button is located … you don’t need to select movie mode! But no, you can’t shoot stills while recording a movie!

You get to choose the various modes by choosing them on the LCD: Program AE; iAuto, scene modes (14 in all); the Magic setting (a selection of filters to convert a picture to Pop Art, Line Art, Pinhole and Fish Eye camera effect, based on Olympus SLRs’ Art Filters feature); Panorama and Beauty (should remove facial blemishes).

I found the Panorama mode a touch tetchy: in one sub mode where the camera invites you to shoot three sections, with lineup marks, I found it difficult to avoid blurring the joins.

ISO Tests

At ISO 64 the camera is performing well, as it should, but definition could be better.

Definition is down a touch more but noise and colour artefacts have yet to appear at ISO 800.

Noise and colour artefacts are up further while definition is poor. ISO 1600 is not really a useable setting.

Distortion

Barrel distortion is evident when the zoom is set to full wide; there is negligible distortion at the tele end.

This shot of apartment block show how severe the barrel distortion can be with some subjects.

Startup Time

Turn on the power and the camera can shoot its first picture after about two seconds; follow on shots can be captured at about two second intervals.

Comment

Quality: about average.
Why you would buy the Mju 9010: you want an HD video camera with follow focus; you need a 10x zoom.
Why you wouldn’t: you need more control over picture taking.

As I indicated earlier this is no run-of-the mill camera and would suit a beginner but, having said that, it does not have ground level pricing.

I must be critical of the small instruction leaflet: two small pages in English are not enough to explain the workings of this model.

Olympus Mju 9010 Specifications

Image Sensor: 14.0 million effective pixels.
Metering: ESP and spot.
Sensor Size: 11mm CCD.
Lens: f3.2-5.9/5-50mm (28-280mm as 35 SLR equivalent).
Shutter Speed: 4 to 1/2000 second.
Continuous Shooting: 0.7 fps at full image size.
Memory: SD, SDHC cards plus 2 GB internal memory.
Image Sizes (pixels): 4288×3216, 3264×2448, 2560×1920, 2048×1536, 1920×1080, 1600×1200, 1280×960, 640×480.
Movies: 1280×720, 640×480, 320×240 at 15/30 fps.
LCD Screen: 6.9cm LCD (230,000 pixels).
File Formats: JPEG, WAV, Motion JPEG.
ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 64 to 1600.
Interface: USB 2.0, HDMI, AV.
Power: Rechargeable lithium ion battery, DC input.
Dimensions: 94×57.6×31.1 WHDmm.
Weight: 171 g (inc battery and card).