At CP+ you were capable to receive the hands about a pre-production adaptation of 1 of Olympus’ more interesting latest products – the Stylus XZ-10. The XZ-10 sits inside the company’s lineup under the XZ-2 plus, unlike its bigger brother, has a 1/2.3″ sensor – the standard size chosen inside most compacts. In this regard its nearest rival is a camera like Nikon’s P310 nevertheless the XZ-10 has a solidity of build along with a amount of direct control which the Nikon doesn’t. Crucially it also offers a more consistently quick lens than some of the cameras it competes with – F1.8-2.7 over its 26-130mm equal range. It’s equally inside very select business because it provides the ability to shoot Raw.

That lens won’t provide a great amount of depth-of-field control (it’d function as the same because a 26-130mm F10-15 lens about a full frame camera), nevertheless does imply the XZ-10 will keep to lower ISOs than its little sensor peers could inside the same light conditions. A built-in ND filter lets you continue to utilize those brighter apertures inside bright conditions, too.

Handling the XZ-10 is a good experience – it has a good fat into it plus feels solidly built, as well as the rubber hold down the front of the camera makes it comfortable plus secure to hold without adding unduly to its volume. And, assisted by the small sensor, the XZ-10 is a little cameras – it’s more pocketable than its bigger brother, the XZ-2. As with which model, the XZ-10 involves 2 control dials (1 about the lens, the alternative being the back four-way controller) along with a touch-screen interface which is selected because much or because small because we like. It also offers a Fn switch, that cycles from some of the 16 settings you’ve enabled inside the menu.

Despite being the junior XZ model, the XZ-10 retains almost all of the customization of the XZ-2, with everything from dial setup (function plus direction) to display choices being configured through the normal size setup menu. Unlike the XZ-1, the small XZ-10 enables control over the sound reduction level being used to JPEGs.

The XZ-10 becomes the initial Olympus to feature ‘Photo Story’ a mode which creates composite pictures from 2 or 3 images taken together. There are a quantity of different framing designs plus sub-modes accessible, like five vertical stripes produced up of straight high-speed pictures, or perhaps a faux-Poloroid image set into the key image. Like Art Filters, there are a lot of choices plus, when the mode aren’t for everyone, the program appears perfectly worked-out with touch-screen surgery generating it convenient to substitute among the absolutely grabbed pictures plus substitute it, by tapping among the shots at any point before we conserve the final composite image.

As befits its position inside the lineup, the XZ-10 appears to balance point-and-shoot qualities with several more enthusiast-friendly tweakability. Just the omission of Super Control panel (1 of the favorite interfaces, plus 1 prepared greater whenever combined with a touch-screen plus lens dial), spoils the initial impression of the Stylus XZ-10. We’ll look to publish a samples gallery within the camera because shortly because manufacturing versions become accessible.