The Olympus Tough Mju 1030SW finally called it quits so in came the latest Tough TG-1 to take over fishing adventure duties.
I had reservations about getting another Olympus Tough after witnessing the poor image qualities of the previous model. I take a lot of photos and it is a lot of resource and time wasted colour correcting the shots. The only single thing I truly liked about the previous Olympus Tough camera was it was… tough! Considering the frequent use I put it through and the way I used and abused it.
With the slew of new “life-proof” cameras there was a lot of spec sheets to look at. The Nikon AW100 and Panasonic FT3 my fishing buddies use all take great pictures. The new Canon D20 looked tempting, but ugly. After scrutinising the spec sheets of the current crop of compact rugged-waterproof cameras, the TG-1 still presented the most appeal.
The fast f2.0 lens was the deciding factor. No other rugged compacts come close in this aspect. The prospect of also using telephoto and wide angle conversion lens are also enticing features – besides the other more minor but welcomed improvements.
Verdict:
After 3 months with the Olympus Tough TG-1 these are my observations.
Image quality is a HUGE improvement over the previous models. The F2.0 lens certainly helped.
Build quality is so far so good. Like the previous unit, this one is also going through the usual weekly abuse both in freshwater and saltwater conditions.
Video quality have such good potentials with full HD, the low light lens, the ability to zoom while recording and stereo recording BUT, I’m not trilled with using it because it seem to be always going in and out of focus. Especially when panning. I wonder if a firmware will fix this issue which I hope there will be a firmware update. Otherwise I will be using the TG-1 mainly for still shots. And that is such a pity.
Another flaw that I have noticed is the ring around the lens which can be twisted off to fit the lens adapters have the potential to come loose and potentially get lost without us realising. This is exactly what happened one time as I pulled the TG-1 out of my pocket and the ring have come loose. I was moving around the boat and luckily managed to just catch hold of it before it feel off.
What camera do you use for your fishing adventures? And why do you choose that?
