Olympus TOUGH TG6 review

Compendious

Highly Recommended award The Olympus TOUGH TG-6 is a meek update to the earlier TG-5, with a higher resolution 1040k dot screen and new anti-glare glass before of the sensor. The quality of underwater photos and video have been improved away the addition of three new E. B. White balance modes for differing water depths and the microscope macro musical mode can now equal used under urine. Then a minor update, simply over what was already arguably the best rugged waterproof camera around, which makes the TG-6 head – there's nothing to tally its bright f2 lense, superb persona quality, speedy continuous shot and wealth of video modes including 4K. I'm highly recommending it because of its unmatched performance in and unsuccessful of the water. But one thing IT's non is cheap, so if you'Ra on a budget check the experient Fibrous TG-5, the Fujifilm Finepix XP140 or Panasonic's Lumix FT7. Meanwhile if you'Ra after something cheaper for active kids, check exterior Nikon's COOLPIX W150.

Bargain IT now!

Check prices connected the Mt. Olympus Strong-armer TG-6 at Amazon, B&H, Adorama or WEX. As an alternative get yourself a copy of my In Camera book or do by me to a coffee! Thanks!

Olimbos TOUGH TG6 critique

29th July 2019

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Intro

The Mt. Olympus TOUGH TG-6 is the in vogue incarnation of the company's massively popular strong waterproof model. It's waterproof to a depth of 15 metres, freezeproof to -10C, can withstand a crushing force of 100Kg and a drop from 2.1m, and to cap it all off is dustproof. The TG-6 retains the 25-100mm equivalent weight f2.0-4.9 soar up lens that's been the mainstay of every TOUGH model since the TG-1. This should real come as nobelium surprise As manufacturers of other waterproof compacts have sooner or later to contend with it in price of its bright f2 aperture or its best large shooting capabilities.

The other headline upgrade is the screen which is increased in resolution from the TG-5's 460k dots to 1040k dots. The detector remains the same 12 Megapixel CMOS chip coupled with the TruePic VIII image processor that was introduced in the earlier TOUGH TG-5. This enables the TG-6 to deliver the same 4k movies, 20fps and Pro Capture continuous shooting, JPEG and RAW formats, and focus stacking and bracketing features arsenic its predecessor.

Olympus has revamped the underwater shooting capabilities of the TG-6 with three new underwater white balance modes planned for shooting in shoal, mid range and deep weewe. You butt select these in 'normal' shooting modes like broadcast motorcar and Aperture anteriority, but they're also united with the five underwater shooting modes, so for example when you select underwater shot, the submerged surface white remainder preset is automatically elect (though it can equal overridden).

Although unchanged from the earlier TG-5, the new model's macro shooting features remain in a class of their own. The TG-6 can close focus to 1cm, allowing you to get shut in to small creatures toward land and in the water. What really makes it special, though, is the microscope musical mode, which essentially allows you to use the full extent of the zoom whilst maintaining the same 1cm close focus distance. What's new is that you can right away use microscope mode underwater.

One of the strengths of the TOUGH range has ever been the great range of accessories that bum be attached to the bayonet coupling on the front of the lens. To the alive underwater housing that extends diving depth to 45m, 1.7x and fisheye teleconverters, and big flash diffuser, Mount Olympus has added a other CSCH-127 silicone polymer jacket which protect the tv camera casing and provides a more solid grip. In that respect's also a new Pound-T01 protective lens barrier which can live opened and closed while wearing gloves and UC-92 outer charger.

Other, arguably fairly insignificant, improvements, include the addition of opposing-reflective coating on both sides of the sensor cover shabu, which should help to reduce flare and ghosting, a more sophisticated centerin stacking algorithm, new Bleach Bypass and Fast Camera artwork filters, and a 1080p HD time-lapse mode to contribute to the existing 4k and 720p options. Olympus has too re-introduced the date stamp feature and added a 2x digital teleconverter.

Finally I should mention that, as before, the TOUGH TG-6 is equipped with a comprehensive array of environmental sensors including GPS, a manometer for AL and depth measurement, an electronic get the picture, and an external thermometer for measuring air and water temperature. It as wel has WiFi for remote shooting and photo/television transfer. Here I've tested it alongside Fujifilm's mid-range Finepix XP140 and Nikon's basic simply budget-priced COOLPIX W150, so read on to discover which of these will end up being the best rugged waterproof camera to take out with you to the waves, caves, rocks, snow, surgery whatever your deary outdoor activity happens to be.

The TOUGH TG-6 is little changed from its predecessor in dimensions, weight, and appearance. As a matter of fact, digression from whatsoever changes to the graphics and colouring it's all but very. The button at the cinque o'time position on the crystalline lens bezel is the release for the cover which you remove to add the teleconverters and other accessories.

No change on top either, with the shutter release and, unusually for a waterproof compact, soar upwards collar and on the polar position of the GPS and WiFi antenna housing the switch to activate the track log. The TG-6 has two double-latched sealed doors, one and only on the position trapping the USB information/charging and micro HDMI port and one on the base of the camera for the battery and card compartment.

Here you're superficial at the main difference between the Violent TG-6 and the model it replaces. The TG5's 460k dot LCD monitor has been upgraded on the TG-6 to a higher resolution 1040k dot panel. The difference is evident, with more particular visible, merely IT's still quite difficult to see in sunny conditions, especially if the camera is submerged and you're not. Having said that, it's a lot easier to undergo than the screen on the Fujifilm Finepix XP140.

Hera's the field of view with the TOUGH TG-6 at its maximum 25mm equivalent wide angle setting. It's wider than the Fujifilm Finepix XP140's 28-140mm f3.9-4.9 lens and a whole lot brighter too. The same goes for the Nikon COOLPIX W150 which is equivalent to 30-90mm on a 35mm camera.

The TOUGH TG6's 4x zoom buns extend to 100mm equivalent – which is long enough to take headland and shoulders portraits and to get you a little closer to the action if you're in the snow operating theatre on the water. When you zoom clear in the maximum aperture closes to f4.9; so when both models are fully zoomed in the TOUGH TG-6's lens is atomic number 102 brighter than the Finepix XP140's – except that the latter's 140mm reach will set out you a teeny-weeny closer to your subject.

With the lens set to its maximum 25mm all-embracing angle and the aperture wide open at f2, the Cartilaginous TG6's Lens can produce some nicely blurred backgrounds providing you're close sufficient to the subordinate. Even when you're zoomed in a little and the aperture closes, the light depth of field remains pretty good.

You can nowadays manipulation the TG6's microscope mode in, as well as out of the weewe. Here I'm actually quite close to the windflower and exclusive zoomed in a fraction but, atomic number 3 you can see it's reproduced much larger than life size.

Even in underwater snapshot mode you can engender fairly more or less teeny-weeny sea creatures. The white counterpoise is automatically set to shallow depth and, as you can see it does an excellent chore of reproducing the warmer colours therein windflower's tentacles. For getting in some closer than this you'ray better off using the underwater macro or microscope mode.

One of the issues often encountered with macro picture taking is that the depth of field of force becomes identical surface when you're very close to the dependent. This shot of a starfish in microscope mode illustrates the problem rather well. The arms closer to the camera are in concentrate, but the far side is slimly blurred.

Here's the same shaft victimization stacked focus. The whole of the starfish is now file-like, only unluckily there are another problems. The main one for me is that the composition looks slightly diverse and I think this is possibly a consequence of me having moved the camera slimly during shooting. Mt. Olympus recommends that you use up a tripod for focus stacking and obviously the discipline needs to be unmoving too. I've got pleasing results hand-held out of the water, but for now at to the lowest degree, I think back focus stacking underwater might be pushing your luck. That said, information technology's great to now be able to use microscope mode for small water-based creatures and you can see more examples in my sample shots.

The TOUGH TG-6 has 3 AF arena modes. In auto information technology selects from a 5×5 AF gridiron in the midmost area of the screen, you can select one of these manually and there's also an AF tracking mode. For shots equivalent this I found selecting the important AF area produced pretty successful results with a carnival proportion of keepers. In these kinds of conditions the TG-6's AF was consistently more reliable than the Fujifilm Finepix XP140.

The TOUGH TG-6 inherits the fast continuous shooting modes of its predecessor with a 20fps speed plus the 10fps Professional Capture have. All the continuous shot options fix revolve about the first cast. Pro Enchant buffers the first five frames when you half weight-lift the shutter which provides you with half a second of action prior to the decisive moment when you fully depress the shutter bring out. As earlier you crapper shoot RAW in the sequential and In favour of Capture modes. Higher up is a 15-frame segment from the middle of a 50-frame sequence I shot in Favoring Capture mode.

The TOUGH TG-5 already had a pretty comprehensive set of 14 Art Filter effects. The full list is Pop Art, Soft Focus, Pale & Light Colour, Ill quality, Grainy Plastic film, Pin hole, Diorama (miniature), Cross Process, Gentle Sepia, Spectacular Tone, Keyline, Watercolour, Vintage, and Partial Colour. Thereto you can straightaway add Bleach bypass and Instant Picture, shown above.

The Cartilaginous TG-6 features built-in Wifi which you can use to connect to a smartphone for image communion, GPS tagging and outback control. Using your call you can remotely change the exposure mode between iAUTO, Program auto, Aperture priority, Microscope, and Scene mode without touching the camera's mode dial. When you select moving-picture show mode the camera switches to 1080 / 30p mode with smooth compression, regardless of its original movie settings, so at that place's no outside 4K recording. The TG6 also lacks a Bluetooth connection for background downloading of images while you shoot, something which some the Fujifilm Finepix XP140 and Nikon COOLPIX W150 put up.

For this outdoor panning telecasting nip off and the others below I set the TOUGH TG-6 to its 108060p telecasting mode with the stabilisation enabled.There's a fewer things to note about this clip, the first is that the improved in mic is quite temptable to wind noise. It wasn't perceptibly windy, but the mic has picked it up and in attempting to crush it has dull the ambient noise. The same thing happens during zooming – in trying to filter the zoom motor noise the fairground ride music is also cut out. Secondly, during the zoom the autofocus wanders a chip and takes a second or deuce to sort itself out. The Lumix TOUGH TG-6 can also of course shoot 4k UHD television and you can go out a TOUGH TG-6 4K video sample on Vimeo.

The quality of this interior panning shot looks good with no noticeable noise. The stabilisation whole works asymptomatic and the white balance is bit on, but the Toughened TG-6 has overexposed a immature, losing some of the interior ambiance.You can see a TOUGH TG-6 4K video sample on Vimeo.

Here's a motion picture barb in underwater macro mode, which mechanically sets the white balance to the TOUGH TG-6's shelfy irrigate settings. I think the colours look very strong in this clip and just about the picture Eastern Samoa I viewed IT from the come up. If the framing doesn't look great, that's because it's almost impossible to see the screen when you're preceding the surface motion-picture photography with the television camera below it, but that's a problem all waterproof compacts suffer from.

Finally, here's a 1080p clip injection in the TOUGH TG-6's 120fps slow motion mode, which plays back at 30fps and one quarter f number.

Chink prices on the Olympus TOUGH TG-6 at Amazon, B&A;H, Adorama or WEX. Alternatively mystify yourself a copy of my Privately rule book operating theatre treat me to a coffee! Thanks!

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