Design and features
Olympus has a strong heritage in tough and rugged cameras, so it's not surprising that the TG-1 is the biggest, boldest and meanest version yet. The physical size of the TG-1 overwhelms pretty much every other camera of its type on the market, which makes it ideal for many applications that don't require a dainty touch — think ploughing around in the snow or frolicking on the beach.
A suite of double-locking doors reinforce just how much harsh treatment this camera can take. They cover the battery and SD card slots, as well as the HDMI and USB ports. Everything else is exposed to the elements, including the front lens element, which sits flush in the middle of the camera body. What's most exciting about the lens is its wide maximum aperture at f/2.0, which goes far and above any other camera of its type on the market. For underwater photography, and especially situations where there's not that much light, a wide-open aperture helps gather as much light as possible to take a clearer shot, without increasing the ISO sensitivity too much.
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| Around the front of the lens element is a removable cover, revealing an area in which you can attach an optional adapter. This is used to clip on a range of different converter lenses, such as a fish-eye and telephoto extender, which can both go underwater as deep as the camera itself. |
The TG-1 is the toughest camera on the market, at the time of writing. Think waterproof to 12 metres, shockproof from 2 metres, freeze-proof to -10 degrees Celcius and crush-proof to 100kg. There's also a GPS for tracking adventures, and a compass to keep you positioned.
Buttons and dials are surprisingly small, given the stature of the camera. At the back is a mode dial giving access to automatic, scene, low-light, sports/fast-moving action and program modes, plus magic filters to add creative effects to shots. It's a camera designed for people who just want to point-and-shoot, rather than fiddle with more manual control options. Tap control, which helps assist users with snow gloves, is available on the TG-1, activated through the menus.
The 4x optical zoom is controlled by a slender zoom button at the back, with a record button that activates full HD 1080p video recording. There's stereo audio recording, thanks to the microphone at the top, though do beware not to cover it when holding the camera, or when using ski gloves.
Lacklustre screens are common on tough cameras, except in the case of the TG-1, which offers a reinforced 3-inch OLED screen. It's reasonably bright, and the higher-than-average resolution makes taking and reviewing images much easier than on other models. Indeed, the only camera in this class with a screen that matches the TG-1, is the Sony TX20.
In most shooting situations, the TG-1 delivers good photo quality. Colours are particularly vibrant, and exposures are generally on the mark when shooting outdoors. For small prints and web use, the images delivered by the camera won't present any issues. Though, looking a little closer reveals a little softness and a slight smeary effect when zooming in to 100 per cent magnification. It's a problem even at low ISO sensitivities. Higher up the ISO range, things start to become very messy. In contrasty situations, particularly when shooting indoors, the TG-1 does have a tendency to blow highlights a little.
As there's no real manual controls on the camera, you can't force it to use its widest maximum aperture of f/2.0 to achieve shallow depth of field effects. Instead, it only really uses this widest aperture when there's a small amount of light.
Video quality is only just OK. The image is somewhat sharp, but there's a lot of graininess over the frame. The most annoying part is that the audio is affected by the zooming of the lens. So when zooming in or out, you can hear the movement of the lens, and it also softens the rest of the audio track too.
Underwater, the TG-1 performs pretty well, though, like many other underwater cameras, the default settings and automatic seem to be tweaked to over-saturate the blue channel. This comes through especially when shooting outdoors on sunny days, as in one example (seen further above in this review) the sky looks excessively blue.
Conclusion
The TG-1 is the best tough camera from Olympus yet. The total redesign over previous models, as well as a whole new suite of internal specs, ensures that many of the issues that plagued previous cameras in the range are no longer a problem. The f/2.0 lens is the standout feature on this model, though it's a shame that you can't force the camera to use this aperture in everyday shooting situations.
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