Ready, steady, go: Olympus SH-1 says goodbye to camera shake

 

 

If you're a fan of Olympus' retro-styled PEN-series mirrorless cameras, but favor travel zoom cameras for their compact dimensions while providing generous telephoto reach, Olympus has good news. The Olympus SH-1 digital camera sports PEN-like styling, complete with an aluminum alloy top deck and controls, but it's much more compact -- especially after you account for its 24x optical zoom lens.

The 16-megapixel Olympus SH-1 also sports a world's first: it marks the official debut of the company's clever five-axis image stabilization system in a fixed-lens, compact camera body. That should translate to sharper, clearer photos in low-light shooting, because the SH-1's stabilization system can account for side-to-side roll, front-to-back pitch, vertical and horizontal translation, and roll around the central axis of the lens.

 

The Olympus SH-1 looks a whole lot like a PEN camera, but with a fixed 24x optical zoom lens.

Another handy feature of the SH-1 is its video mode, capable of shooting Full HD movies at up to 60 frames per second, and 720p movies at a whopping 120fps. Cooler still, it can also shoot time-lapse video. And there's also in-camera Wi-Fi connectivity, handy for getting your still images and videos onto a smartphone -- and from there, onto social networks.

Available from May 2014, the Olympus SH-1 ships in black, silver or white versions with a list price of US$400. Find out a whole lot more about this interesting, shake-resistant compact in our Olympus SH-1 preview!