The Olympus SP-590UZ brings the most powerful zoom lens available to the ultrazoom party, with a massive 26x (equivalent to 26-676mm on a 35mm camera). The $450 camera records 12-megapixel images, but unfortunately lacks HD video capabilities. As with most ultrazoom cameras, it comes with a substantial battery of manual controls, making it ideal for people who want more than their standard point-and-shoot can offer.

The most important of these photographic controls is the variety of shooting modes; the SP-590UZ has the full suite of manual, aperture priority, shutter priority and program (plus a number of automatic modes). There's also a good bracketing function, great controls over the white balance setting, plenty of different burst mode options, and a maximum shutter speed of 15 seconds (or up to 8 minutes in bulb mode).

What we didn't like about the camera was its convoluted menu system, lackluster user manual, and, rather significantly, a total lack of a control dial. Most ultrazoom cameras have a dial of some description to rapidly alter settings and browse through images. The 590UZ forces you to browse through long menus or over the entire range of shutter speeds using the far slower method of pushing buttons on the rear of the camera. It's inelegant, and occasionally time-consuming.

Performance (read in-depth performance coverage at DigitalCameraInfo.com) 

In our lab testing, the Olympus results ranged from mediocre to underwhelming. It got some traction for decent color accuracy, and had good sharpness. However, the lens produced significant distortion levels, the image stabilization system didn't help much in reducing blur caused by shaky hands, and the continuous shooting speed was disappointing.

In our video testing, the camera had acceptable color accuracy, but its standard definition video mode tanked in our sharpness analysis.

Comparisons (read in-depth comparisons at DigitalCameraInfo.com)

We compared the Olympus to three other ultrazooms: the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS, the Nikon Coolpix P90 and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1. Unfortunately, the 590UZ didn't come out ahead of any of these. It comes closest to the Nikon P90, both with very long zooms, 12-megapixel still images and SD video. Both had average or lower performance in our lab testing. However, the Nikon comes out ahead in this head-to-head due to a lower $400 price point. The Canon and Sony were both markedly more expensive (the Canon even more so than the Sony), but comes with substantial improvements in video, image stabilization and shooting speed. The Sony also has an enviable new processor, that allows it to quickly create in-camera panoramas, with just a sweep across the room, a feature we rather enjoy.