Olympus Tough TG -6
The everything-proof outdoor camera www. olympus. co. uk
The everything-proof outdoor camera
Olympus has earned a stellar reputation for its Tough cameras, which are widely regarded as the premier all-weather compacts. The Olympus Tough TG-6 continues the tradition of best-in-class waterproof, impact-proof, everything-proof cameras, although it’s only a modest refresh of 2017’s TG-5.
The TG-6 is waterproof to 15m, dustproof, shockproof to 2.1m, crushproof up to 100kg, and freezeproof to -10°C. It also features dual-pane protective glass construction for superior anti-fogging. In fact, the glass on the rear LCD screen appears quite a bit thicker than that of the TG-5 – your poor smartphone would wince at the punishment this screen can take.
It’s worth mentioning, however, that in our very first drop test, the plastic thumb grip panel did pop off the body. It would be easy to reaffix, and doesn’t affect the camera’s operability, but it was a tad surprising to encounter such a weak spot. Nothing else came off in subsequent bash-testing.
Another new trick the TG-6 has over its older brother is a new underwater mode to complement the existing wide, snapshot, macro and HDR options: Underwater Microscope. The camera has an insane close-focusing distance; on paper it can focus up to 1cm from the lens, but we were able to take shots with the subject literally hitting the lens and the camera still found focus.
Performance
Like its predecessor, the TG-6 features a 12MP backlit 1/2.3” sensor. On the surface, that seems to be a
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The TG-6 features a 4.5-18mm (25-100mm full-frame equivalent) lens with a fast maximum aperture of f/2 – although you can only shoot this wide at the 25mm end.
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The flash can be manually controlled from full power down to 1/64, and the LED lamp offers more naturallooking light or fill if you don’t need as much power.
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The camera boasts image stabilisation for both stills and movies, as well as GPS and Olympus’ Field Sensor system, which can record information such as location, altitude and air temperature. puzzling downgrade from the 16MP sensor of the TG-4. However, having fewer pixels means that each photosite is bigger – meaning that this sensor performs better in low light situations. And that’s not just when the sun goes down; when you’re shooting underwater, there is much less ambient light, so improved low light performance is vital for this camera.
Combine the carefully balanced sensor choice with a 100-12,800 ISO range and you have a camera that delivers great images in good light, and performs admirably in challenging lighting conditions – obviously noise is going to be a factor with a sensor this small in low light, but the resulting files are still usable and the ability to shoot stills in raw means that you can recover details during editing.