ISO comparison
These are 100 percent crops from the center of our test scene. The Olympus Stylus 1's image quality is just a step beyond that of a small sensor point-and-shoot. Between ISO 100 and ISO 400, fine detail is very good and noise/artifacts aren't much of an issue; they're only really noticeable if you're pixel peeping.
At ISO 800 you'll see an increase in softness and noise kicks up a notch. Still, its 1/1.7-inch sensor and sane 12-megapixel resolution allows for better low-light performance than you'll find on a comparable camera with a 1/2.3-inch sensor. Moving up to ISO 1600 results in soft, smeary fine details and muddier colors. Olympus' JPEG processing is good, but if you prefer to exchange some graininess for a little better fine detail, shoot in raw or raw plus JPEG and process them yourself.
I would stay away from ISO 3200 unless you really have to use it. With the constant f2.8 aperture and excellent image stabilization, though, you won't have to rely on high ISOs as much as you would with a typical compact longzoom camera.
Super Macro mode
The Stylus 1 can focus as close as 2 inches (5 centimeters) from a subject in Super Macro mode. Outside of that mode it can focus as close as 4 inches at the wide end and 2.6 feet in telephoto.
Zoom range
Distortion
Art Filters
Photo Story mode
Full-size sample: ISO 320
The photo in this slide as well as those in the slides that follow are available for you to view at full size using the links below each image. Note, though, that these are large files and may take several seconds to download.