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Only a few months after the world premiere, one of the most interesting Olympus cameras is in front of us! The Mju 770 SW has 3 main characteristics: it's strong, unbreakable, and will follow you gladly to any diving session or even Antarctica, as it can work with the temperatures as low as -10 degrees Centigrade! On the serious side, Olympus has made its impressive camera from a steel alloy, meaning that it's pressure-resistant up to 100 kg, can fall from up to 1.5 m of height while remaining untouched (we didn't test this ourselves) and finally, it's completely waterproof, all the way down to the depth of 10 m. By the way, having looked at the comments made about this model, we found a review by a group of divers who tried the camera at a depth of 20 meters, where the only problem was a pressure so high that it kept some of the buttons pressed, but the water did not penetrate the device.
The new Olympus is actually an heir to the last year's model 770 SW, and now brought to near perfection. The case is made of stainless steel and is available in three different colours: titanium grey, dark blue and chocolate brown. All three colors are equally attractive, so that the potential buyer has a tough call. Although it's a classic point & shoot camera, Olympus devised the button-position strategy quite carefully, so a large number of options are available directly from the menu. The buttons themselves are slightly too small for our taste, but the response time upon pressing is great, while people with smaller fingers won't even feel it. Of course, miniaturization carries with itself a certain deal of compromise.
As the camera is meant to be used underwater, the battery, card and USB openings are protected by a soft, carefully designed rubber, which provides perfect “vacuum” lids, thus stopping the water from entering the case.
Of course other options of this “super-camera” make sense. Did it ever happen to you to sit down with the mobile phone in your back pocket? Or recline on a wall with the mobile in the front pocket? This type of situations is the most often cause of mobile devices' breakdown, but Olympus made sure that the construction be such to enable comfortable, even careless use. 770 SW has a 3x optical zoom, located within the body of the camera. Its construction resembles a periscope of a submarine, thus providing both additional stoutness of the body and decreased chance of inflicting damage upon it – the objective always remains in the body of the camera, while the zooming is performed by movements of the internal lens group. Of course, this way, the water resistance is increased as well, and all of this does not degrade the image quality one single bit. On the contrary, the 770 SW belongs to the better-quality lot in the 7 MP range. Object geometry is correct, whereas the chromatic aberrations are rather small. The blend opening could be slightly bigger, although maybe not in this type of camera construction. Alongside the already standard tourist options (24 programs, 4 out of which for underwater shooting), the camera can also pride itself on the possibility to manually adjust White Balance and ISO sensitivity.
One of the previously unseen things is certainly the manometer. A discreet round notch with 4 little holes, situated on the right side of the camera (for which we thought was a microphone) is actually a pressure measuring sensor. No matter whether you are diving or mountaineering, the camera shows the approximate depth/height, with the possibility of calibration. Of course, the value can be inserted into the photo itself, so that you can easily show proof of your conquered peak or the reached depth.
Working with the 770 SW is quick and elegant. It takes no more than 2 seconds from pressing the “ON” button (either the upper, classic “ON” button or the back one, with the sign of a camera) to taking the first photo. The latency at picture sharpening and shooting is no longer than 1/3 of a second, whereas the time required between two consecutive shoots is around 2 seconds. If the flash is being used, the recycle time is between 2 and 4 seconds, depending on the distance and current battery charge. The 770 SW has an impressive sensitivity range, together with digital image stabilization which should nevertheless not be counted on too much. The camera also offers basic options like image correction, adding brightness, increasing color saturation, sepia or black & white conversion and the already standard red-eye reduction effect, the feature that may as well be the most important one and functions in a fine way here.
For people not so comfortable with different types of software, there is an option to automatically connect and transfer photos to the computer. The device is “propelled” by a Li-Ion battery (charged with the supplied charger) and one charge is enough for around 200 pictures. Finally, as a curiosity, we must mention that there is an underwater case for this model that enables using the device on depths down to an entire 40 meters!
This Olympus's fledgling will certainly provoke great interest among the adventurous users, and all we can recommend in addition is that you purchase a larger capacity memory card with it, and test its waterproof “abilities” in a bathtub or at local baths before entrusting it with the important task of preserving the memories from your family summer holiday this year!
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Digital cameras 
