Olympus mju 790 SW: The new underwater wonder

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

ONLY a few things would make a splash buff blush, and among them is getting a camera that can be taken underwater, be frozen down to below five degrees Celsius, and be dropped from a height of 1.5 meters (shoulder length).

This sounds familiar because Olympus already did this with the mju 725 about three years ago. Then it followed up with the mju 750 in 2006 and now, the company has recently introduced the mju 790 SW. So far, the mju 790 is the most high-tech all-terrain consumer camera from Olympus and it certainly lives up to the hype of the best underwater camera in the market.

Two months ago, I was able to test the mju 770 by sinking it in a bucket of water and chucking it inside my freezer. This time the mju 790 SW took a more sustained test when I brought it to Miniloc island in El Nido, Palawan. Of course, that’s the juicy part — and here’s an underwater video I took to show the mju 790 SW in action.

But I’ll have to describe the device first. The mju 790 SW comes from the same family as the mju 725 and is among the very few waterproof and shockproof digital cameras available in the market (other models are the Pentax Optio W30 and the Sanyo VPC-E1 Xacti camcorder). Its predecessor was the mju 770 SW and in a lot of ways, both models are basically just the same, except for a few aesthetic and technical differences. The mju 790 SW was redesigned to look more sporty than the boxy mju 770 SW and comes in four colors (black, blue, orange and silver). It’s also smaller and lighter at 136 grams versus the mju 770’s 156 grams. Nevertheless, the mju 790 still has a solid construction with no metal seams that would give away its underwater or shockproof capability. It still looks and feel like an ordinary digital camera.

The features of the mju 790 are still standard as with the mju 770: it uses a 7.1 megapixel image sensor on a ½.3 CCD sensor. The lens can go up to 3 times optical zoom and 5 times digital zoom. The lens seems completely hidden under a metallic hood. It’s a surprise that unlike most digital cameras with optical zoom, this one doesn’t have any external moving parts since all the lenses (a total of 10) are effectively squeezed beneath the hood.

For the more serious photographer, the mju 790 packs a lot of macro-shooting capabilities. It has automatic and manual ISO film speeds from 100-400 (automatic) to 80-1600 (manual). It also has six white balance modes for different environments and at least five shooting modes for its internal flash.

Olympus has added a “Guide” feature on the unit, ostensibly to help point-and-click users to decide what pre-set scene modes will be useful under certain conditions. It has a total of 23 scene modes, including basic portrait, night shot, sunset, document photography, beach and snow, and underwater shots. It’s almost difficult to actually get confused on how to use the device tanks to the “Guide’ button.

Still recording will give a user an option from as low as 640×480 pixels to as high as 3072×2304 (a photo taken in this mode will show up on a 40″ screen without being stretched or pixellated). Likewise, videos can be recorded in the high-speed 30-frame 640×480, mid-speed 320×240, or low-speed 15-frame 160×120. However, the downside to recording videos is that there are time limits for each of the speed quality recordings. For example, the high-speed mode will only give a user 10 seconds for each recording, 30 minutes for mid-speed and about 1 hour for low-speed. The file format is AVI, which has high memory requirements. A 10-second high-definition video will already need at least 20 MB of space on the XD card; this points to the need for a higher-capacity XD card and it is recommended that you get the 2-gigabyte XD card instead.

Another problem is that the digital camera could only record sound directly in front of it. Any small movement and the mic sensitivity will shift to almost quiet to compensate for the loss of the sound coming from a source. It should be handled steadily in one direction if the purpose is recording sound as well.

And so the actual torture test comes in. Despite any initial hesitation to use the camera under water (in seawater for that matter), I decided to take the mju 790 to the beach where most digital camera users fear to tread due to the corroding effects of saltwater on electronic devices, as well as the fine sand that could clog moving parts. According to Olympus, the mju 790 can be dunked in up to 10 feet of water. The initial test involved dipping the camera in about two feet of water; so far the camera worked perfectly, even with loose sand getting into the lens. One method of removing sand from the lens hood is to put it under running water and switching the power on and off to make the lens hood open and close. While this looks straining to the camera it is how it really works. After its two-feet dip, the camera was sunk in about seven feet of water. The LCD screen can still be viewed even without the aid of goggles or a snorkeling mask, as long as the water is clear up to 10 feet. The camera worked smoothly under different water conditions, including overcast (light penetrating below water surface is reduced) and murky water. It could still take photos and videos and could even record sound at short distances (about five feet).

The downside, however, is the camera’s weight: unless it is attached to a person via the rubber strap, the camera will sink to the bottom so a lot of consideration should be taken before bringing the unit out to sea. It’s also difficult to snorkel while holding a digital camera in one hand and it would have been a treat if it were attached to an armband or a waistband.

And yes, the unit was dropped, albeit accidentally, from about three feet on a concrete floor. It’s still working but did show some scratches on its metal casing.

Overall, the Olympus mju 790 SW is the best waterproof digital camera in the market and is also one that costs nearly the same as regular digital cameras (at a suggested retail price of P24,000). Above water, the camera packs a lot of features that other digital cameras in the same price range have, but its underwater functions can sink the competition — literally.

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