Five and a half years ago, long before Panasonic launched the FZ series, before Canon, Kodak, Minolta - or anyone else for that matter - had joined the 'big zoom' party there was the Olympus C-2100UZ. With its image-stabilized 10x zoom, electronic viewfinder and SLR-styling the C-2100UZ was a big success when it launched mid-2000 (the only alternatives at the time being Sony floppy disk cameras with camcorder lenses).

Fast forward to 2006. The super zoom market has got a lot busier and Olympus has lost its early lead, failing to offer a serious alternative to popular models like the Canon S2IS or the Panasonic FZ20, despite fairly regular upgrades to the compact C7XX series of ultra zoom cameras. The biggest problem is the lack of image stabilization, something that in today's market means 'budget' - and that's where the new, lower-priced (but still IS-free) SP-500UZ comes in.