CES 2009: Olympus has announced three new 12 megapixel Stylus compact digital cameras. The Stylus 9000 (mju 9000 in Europe) is the smallest 12MP 10X zoom digital camera on the market, the company says. There’s also a 7X version, the Stylus 7000 (mju 7000 in Europe) and, in Europe only, so far as we can tell, the mju 5000. All three feature ‘Beauty Mode’ that aims to smooth people’s complexions in portraits. Specifications to follow Press Release: Beautiful cameras for beautiful photographs Power and elegance combined London, 7 January 2009 – The popular Olympus µ series is
(Read the full article about ‘Olympus creates the Stylus 7000 and Stylus 9000′…)

Labs beta: As revealed last Thursday (our tenth anniversary) today we are flicking the switch on our latest (and potentially biggest) new site feature. Our Challenges system provides a mechanism by which photographic challenges can be both created and entered by any member of our community. The initial beta has a few limitations (see inside for details). That said we’re excited to make this new feature available today and hope you will enjoy testing it, we would actively encourage feedback using the special link available at the bottom of all challenges pages.   Phil: We’re excited
(Read the full article about ‘Challenges Beta – now available’…)

Labs beta: As part of our ten years celebration we’ve been working hard to bring you a beta of our next big site feature; Challenges. Anyone who has been on the dpreview forums will be more than aware of the popularity of photographic challenges. Until now these have been created primarily by a single challenge host creating a new thread in the forums to promote their challenge idea and others following up with entries. We decided to take this concept and develop a fully integrated challenge system for dpreview which will allow series of challenges to run, with a flexible range of rule
(Read the full article about ‘Labs beta: Challenges’…)

The fourth (and penultimate) installment of our compact camera roundup looks at the top-end cameras aimed at the experienced photographer. These enthusiast cameras offer a bit more flexibility than the cameras we’ve looked at so far, whether that’s the inclusion of a large zoom range or a greater degree of manual control. Follow the link to find what we made of them.
Source: www.dpreview.com

Olympus is rebranding its Stylus SW series of digital compacts as the Stylus TOUGH series to better promote its range of rugged cameras in a more defined category. Now to be known as Stylus TOUGH in the United States and µ TOUGH in the European Union, this new name will be introduced in early January 2009. Press Release: Olympus Rebrands Stylus SW Cameras To Stylus Tough Series Company that Defined and Expanded “Tough” Camera Segment Renames Series Accordingly Center Valley, Pa., December 2008 – Olympus, the company that introduced shockproof/waterproof digital compact cameras
(Read the full article about ‘Olympus rebrands Stylus SW to Stylus TOUGH’…)