I’d imagine a camera like this would be highly sought after by paparazzi and other gossip mongers, because you can get real close to the action and take some rather intimate snapshots without actually being all that physically close to your subject. The Olympus SP-550UZ is one of the craziest ultra-zoom cameras I’ve come across thus far, as it boasts a ridiculous 18x optical zoom. By comparison, most point-and-shooters only do 3x.

Picture quality stays quite high with its 7.1 megapixel image sensor, and if you happen to max out the xD card that you’re packing, you’ll get somewhat of a backup plan via the 21MB of internal memory. Need to capture something that’s moving a little too fast (perhaps a celebrity driving away in a Lamborghini)? Don’t worry, because the Olympus SP-550UZ supports up to ISO5000, though you’ll need to dial down to the three megapixel mark for that.

In addition to RAW and JPEG stills, this cam will also handle VGA videos at 30fps. No word on price.