Torture Test: Olympus 'Tough' Cameras

I have an olympus tough camera and it is definitely on my top 5 favorite electronics-that-I-own list. One time, I had someone take a picture of me jumping a rock at Breck and throw the camera to me afterwards. My jump landed great, but the guy threw my camera into a rock and a piece broke off the lens (no damage to the actual camera). I sent it in to see if they could fix the lens. $45 later, I had a brand new case for a camera that would have easily broken in half had it not been made to withstand such abuse.

I’ve been running an 8010 for about a year. I one aspect that really bothers me is the shutter lag time. This lag is around 1.3 seconds. I often get the crap picture that happens right after the good picture moment has past with this camera. Have they imporved the shutter lag on the TG-810?

If you are looking into buying this camera, you need to know that may falter in sub-zero temperatures. Temperatures where your (non-rugged-ized) cell phone will work, but this camera will not. This was my experience. Otherwise, I would say, great camera.

Jonathan, what you are calling “Shutter lag” is likely the time it takes to auto focus, then fire. If you can pre-focus the camera will fire nearly instantly. Pretty much all cameras have this – some are just faster at focusing than others. Good luck!

My wife and I own the orange Olympus SW camera (I don’t remember the model name but it’s circ 2009, I think) and the image quality, for $159 at Sam’s Club at the time, is not as good as our little Kodak for $79 or $99 at Sam’s Club. And, the Kodak has endured beaches, camping, etc. Is it mtb-proof and able to be submerged under the swimmers at Ironman Hawaii, well, no, but it’s made better images than the Olympus.

BTW, the best UW camera I’ve owned? The old Sony Cybershot, white and blue, that looked like a Pez dispenser!

What has been said is all true however theses camera (Olympus and other compacts) are NOT durable when it comes to water. After owning 5 Olympus Though cameras (various models) and a Panasonic TS2 I have concluded that if used in slat water the cameras will fail, sooner or later. The materials used to make the shell are not corrosion proof and within a couple of months the cameras will develop enough corrosion to then creep inside and let water in. I had some replaced under warranty but that last only for 12 months. Of course some will say that they have used the camera at the beach and sea and still works fine. That’s probably OK for the occasional (single) use, not repeated/regular use.
Though yes, but not for salt water.
For a pictorial evidence:” Link Text”:http://gnarlydognews.blogspot.com/search/label/camera

Gnarly,
Good point – thanks for sharing. Curious if you would rinse the saltwater off post-use, or no? I had many “surf” watches die prematurely when I used them surfing. Saltwater is tough on gear for sure.

If salt water is held in devices for an extended length of time, they could suffer galvanic corrosion, depending on the materials inside and thier proximity to each other.

Galvanic corrosion is an electrochemical process in which one metal corrodes preferentially to another when both metals are in electrical contact and immersed in an electrolyte.

Wow Roy that’s pretty heavy

Since the manual of the camera does state that the camera must be rinsed in fresh water I do that religiously. No matter how much I rinse the camera after my outings they still corrode.
Now, with Panasonic they ask you to do it within one hour! hardly convenient for real world use. I go out on the sea for more than an hour, usually :-)
Pentax has all plastic cases; too bad that the rest of the camera seems to lack performance (from reports)

@Jonathan Wilson the s’shutter lag’ is the same in my mind. I had the Stylus 850 SW and that took pictures as soon as you pressed the button. I had the 8010 for a week and returned it because of this ‘shutter lag’. I decided to try out the 810 and it has the same lag. I like the GPS, but the coordinates are not to precise. I have been trying to contact OLYMPUS for the past two months regarding this – I have stopped holding my breath!!