Olympus has had a very active year in new digital camera equipment releases, starting off with the announcement of the Olympus VG-150 in January and the VR-310 in February. They kept the momentum going through August, 2012, announcing the SZ-31MR HIS, M. Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f.29 Macro lens, Tough TG-1 his, Stylus SP-820UZ, the VH-410 and the VH-515. Both the VG-150 and VR-310 are consumer-friendly, easy-to-handle models at the low end of the price range for quality cameras of this standard.
(VG-150) Features:
- 12 Megapixels
- 4.00x zoom
- 2.7 inch LCD
- Shutter: 4-1/2000
- Max Aperture: 2.9
- Dimensions: 3.6 x 2.1 x 0.8
- Weight: 3.7 oz.
- Price: $87
The Olympus VG-150 boasts some amazing features for its price tag. This compact model comes with Face Recognition, special effect, and the ability to shoot movies at a very competitive price tag, making it a great holiday gift. A 1/2.3" type camera, it comes with a CCD image sensor built in. Its zooming capability is organized with optical zooming giving the capability of 4x lens zoom. Unfortunately, it does not have the ability for MIS (mechanical-image-stabilization). This model only includes the DIS (Digital-Image-Stabilization) to help to increase sensitivity of ISO. The sensitivity of the ISO is between 100-ISO to 1600-ISO. It has the display size of “2.7 inches” with the ability of “230,000” DR (dot-resolution). It’s creativity editing features allow the user to do punk, pop art, pin hold, drawings, fish eye, soft focus and sparkle effects.
This camera has 4:3 ratio aspect and its dimension are 3968 x 2976 pixels. Its HD-pixel-resolution is 1,920 x 1,080. This product has CDA (the system of autofocus of contrast detection) that operates off the streaming of the data that is been taken from “image sensor”. Face detection is a very solid and useful feature of VG-150. This is joined with “the system of auto exposure plus auto focusing system”.
The movie capturing feature loaded with standard definition motion, comprises of (640 x 480) pixels of VGA. It is battery operated item that comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery.
(VR-310) features:
This is an incredible item from Olympus with 14 megapixels. It is small enough in size as to fit your jean pocket. Its optical zoom is 10x and the focusing ability of this item is from 24 mm to 240 mm. Compared to similar models, it has a large 3” display and focus/track automatically.
Its image sensor type is a ½.3” CCD. Its ISO range is 80-1600. As far as the lens focal length is concerned, it ranges from 4.2 mm to 42 mm. It has 4x digital zoom. Its closest focus range is from 0.6m (W) to 1.0m (T). The screen image view shows as TFT image. The resolution of the screen is 230,000. There are three different focus modes:
- Face detection mode
- Spot mode
- Tracking mode
There are various screen modes provided in this item that are:
- Portrait mode
- Landscape mode
- Night mode
- Sport mode
- Indoor mode
- Candle mode
- Self Portrait mode
- Sunset mode
- Fireworks mode
- Cuisine mode
- Beach Mode
- Snow Mode
Plus more....
Both Olympus compact models make great gifts for the novice who enjoys sharing photos.
To see reviews of professional Olympus cameras, check out Photo.net where you'll find a review of the Olympus Pen E-PL3 and the Olympus OM-D E-M5: http://photo.net/equipment/olympus/om-d/e-m5/announcement-and-preview/