Olympus 850 SW

If your rambles take you through adverse terrain and extreme climate (or if you're just generally clumsy), having a digicam like the 850 SW is a definite plus. Why? Because it's shockproof and waterproof. While such ruggedness is great, are the pictures good enough? We got an opportunity to test the Olympus 850 SW in some interesting conditions, and here’s what we found.

Form Factor
The 850 SW is a sleek, well-designed camera that’s easy to carry around, considering it weighs only about 140 g. The entire camera has been designed not just to withstand some hard knocks but moisture too. If you’re into diving you can sink with it up to a depth of 10 feet. The battery/XD card compartment and USB port (proprietary for some odd reason) which also doubles as an AV-out are all comfortably protected by special waterproof seals and gaskets.

Essentially the entire internal structure and working of the camera is totally resistant to outside forces, including water and sand. Trust me, I should know, it got stuck for a bit in the sand under water. Don’t ask me how it happened (it’s complicated) but I opened it up later to make sure nothing had lodged in the clasps – and it was bone dry.

The 850 SW has a superb 2.5 inch HyperCrystal LCD that’s perfect for watching video and checking images. The well-designed navigation system is easy to use, even for new users. Everything is depicted with small icons so you can’t go wrong. The dial for selecting various shooting modes and other options is smooth, but if I'd had a say I'd have made a couple of changes in the placement of a few functions.

Features
The 850 SW has plenty to offer travelers who, as I said, could use it in some pretty odd places. I especially liked the internal post-processing feature that allows you to add effects to existing images, such as frames, labels and even edit the colors and the size. A 'Perfect Setting' option lets the camera automatically adjust the shadow and red-eye in the selected image.

Another interesting feature is the Guide, which new users will find very helpful. It offers tips on getting the best out of the camera and to implement certain effects. The best part of this inbuilt how-to feature is that it shows you live previews of what each effect will look like. That really is one of the better features in the 850 SW.

This 8 megapixel camera comes equipped with Face Detection, 3x optical zoom, and Super Macro mode with and without an LED to light up the object. It also has many scene modes, with images instead of simple icons to choose your mode. There's also a Shadow Adjustment feature that comes in handy.

One of the easiest modes to shoot in is Available Light. This no-hassle setting picks up all the available light in the frame to get you the best possible picture.