Olympus has just pulled the wraps off the Olympus Stylus XZ-10, their latest enthusiast compact camera to be sold alongside their current Stylus XZ-2 compact. The two cameras share much in common, but the XZ-10 isn’t merely a carbon copy. For starters, the XZ-10 is designed primarily as a camera with a stylish statement. It is incredibly slim, and Olympus claims the XZ-10 is 40 percent smaller than the XZ-2 in terms of volume.
It does still carry the same megapixel count as the XZ-2, the usual 12 megapixels, but swaps out the relatively larger 1/1.7-inch CMOS sensor in the XZ-2 for a 1/2.3-inch BSI-CMOS sensor. The XZ-10 also comes with improved optics as the lens is now sports a 5x optical zoom (26-130mm) with a maximum aperture range of f/1.8-2.7. The lens is not an optically stabilized one, but that’s because Olympus is using a sensor-shift mechanism to essentially offer the stabilization.
Other features of the XZ-10 include full 1080p HD video capture with stereo sound, HDR backlight adjustment for shooting against light, a 3-inch 920K dot super sensitive touch screen and manual controls for fast and easy adjustment.
In addition to the XZ-10, Olympus also announced that the XZ-2 will now also be available in a second colour, white, apart from the original black. While the XZ-2 will set you back £479.99 (roughly Rs. 41,000), the XZ-10 will be available from late March 2013 for just £349.99 (roughly Rs. 30,000), in black, brown or white.