Last week, I ordered a tiny little camera for recreational purposes. I chose the 5.0 megapixel Olympus Stylus Verve S, because of the incredibly compact size and previous positive experience with a film based Stylus.

After taking several shots with it, I determined that photo quality is good for this class of camera and what I intend to use it for. In contrast to my Nikon D70, the exposure metering is weak. I noticed the camera tends to overexpose, which can be corrected by adjusting the exposure compensation setting that Olympus engineers thoughtfully provided. Not surprisingly, due to the small CCD, the camera is extremely noisy at high ISO speeds. This is would be less of an issue if the built in flash was more powerful.

Camera controls are intuitive and easy to figure out. However, there is room for improvement. A dedicated erase button would be nice. Also, the stupid “all reset” menu option is extremely annoying and should be turned off by default.

I highly recommend this camera for documenting nights on the town or other applications where size and weight considerations trump photo quality and battery life. Speaking of battery life, order a spare with the camera.

[The following paragraphs were added September 26, 2005, by Smoove D - Ed.]

The following example photographs were taken with an Olympus Stylus Verve S on September 17, 2005, at the East Atlanta Strut:

• Raj Dixit of Charm School;
• Mary O. Harrison of Charm School; and
• Jenny Hutton of Charm School.