The Olympus C-5500 Sport Zoom is, above all, a good compact camera for the money. Its 5-megapixel resolution, 5X optical zoom, solid build, impressive array of features, and very good image quality add up to a strong all-purpose option for the advanced snapshot photographer. That said, some of its features are compromised; for example, you can’t shoot in burst mode at the highest-quality JPEG setting. That drawback, in addition to some inconsistent shutter lag and focus-time performance, makes this camera less suited for shooting action than the Sport Zoom moniker might lead you to believe.
The Olympus C-5500 Sport Zoom excels in image quality, producing pleasing, clean photos with accurate exposure and very good detail and sharpness. Colors are saturated but natural, and photos exhibited very little noise at low ISO ratings, although at ISO 400, noise does tend to mar the photographs. Surprisingly little purple fringing was visible, even in branches and gate detail photographed against the sky.
The automatic white balance performed nicely both outdoors and in, making it generally unnecessary to take advantage of the C-5500’s many white-balance settings. Flash-lit photos were exposed properly too. Neither barrel nor pincushion distortion was noticeable in any of our test photos.