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Olympus SZ-30MR

With a 24x optical zoom and ridiculous 15 frames per second continuous shooting speed, the SZ-30 is a promising superzoom.

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Lexy Savvides Principal Video Producer
Lexy is an on-air presenter and award-winning producer who covers consumer tech, including the latest smartphones, wearables and emerging trends like assistive robotics. She's won two Gold Telly Awards for her video series Beta Test. Prior to her career at CNET, she was a magazine editor, radio announcer and DJ. Lexy is based in San Francisco.
Expertise Wearables, smartwatches, mobile phones, photography, health tech, assistive robotics Credentials
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Lexy Savvides

In brief

Olympus has had many tries at superzooms in the past, not all entirely successful, but the SZ-30MR and its less-specced out cousin the SZ-20 look set to change that. Using a 16-megapixel backlit CMOS sensor means this camera should be decent in low-light and deliver fast performance results. Olympus also states that it can take full resolution still images while recording video at full 1080p (H.264).

Continuous shooting hits a ridiculous 15 frames per second, though that's at a 5-megapixel resolution. Full resolution shots have to make do with 3 frames per second, while the 24x optical zoom lens lets photographers get pretty personal with their subjects. It's also wide-angle at 25mm, though the maximum lens aperture is a disappointing f/3.0.

3D continutes to make its mark on digital cameras this year, with the SZ-30MR including a 3D photo mode which creates the image by panning the camera from one side to another, resulting in an MPO file.

The SZ-30MR will be available from April at AU$599.