The Olympus Mju 550 WP is an elegant, well-designed camera and one of the cheapest waterproof models on the market today, but can it live with the competition and give the results you want at the pool or on the beach?

Handling
The Mju 550 WP is styled like a stripped-down version of a classic compact digital camera; a nice design.  The most noticeable difference with any other entry-level compact are the seals that cover access to the batteries, memory card and USB connection, allowing you to take photos at depths of up to three metres.  Perfect for the pool, but not enough for the open sea.

The camera controls are made up of four arrow buttons and several shortcuts.  The directional arrows are much too small and if you have large fingers it's very easy to find yourself pressing two or even three buttons at the same time.  The zoom control is also very small and so stiff that it's hard to get the zoom right first time.


The 2.5'' LCD screen is sharp and clear, but only if you're looking straight at it; the viewing angles are much too restricted, especially from above and below. 

The Mju 550 WP is slow: it takes 1.6 seconds to power up and saving a photo takes a good five seconds, easily long enough for you to lose patience.  Only the Autofocus is fairly rapid.

Image Quality
In good light and on dry land, the Mju 500 WP takes perfectly good photos.  The lens is nothing exceptional, but photos are still sharp for a 10 Megapixel camera.  As is too often the case, the sensor 'burns' light shades and the white-balance could be improved, especially indoors.  Electronic noise handling is also poor, and it would be unwise to try anything above 800 ISO.  The lack of image stabilisation doesn't help either.


Video mode is still only at 10 fps (when's that firmware update coming, Olympus?), and you can't use the zoom while filming.  Macro mode is more reasonable with focus at 7 cm.