15 Reasons the Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 Camera Likes It When You Treat It Rough

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olympustg810 image 1. The Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 Camera was designed to join you for your most rugged outdoor activities and adventures. At just less than a pound in weight and solidly built, the TG-810 looks the part of a tough guy, who likes to play rough.

Read real customer reviews of the Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 Camera here.

2. The TG-810 is waterproof to 33 feet (10m), shockproof from 6.6 feet (2m) and freeze-proof to 14 degrees F (-10 C). Take it through the rapids, up a rock face, down the slope and along the reef.

3. Regardless of the rough conditions, the battery, memory card and connection slots are protected from dust and sealed from water behind equally tough, little doors on the right side of the camera body.

4. The sensor has been upgraded in the Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 from its predecessor, 12.7 to 14 megapixels; and the TG-810 has the new Olympus TruePic III+ processor.

5. The TG-810 makes it tough for the competition too, with its 3-inch, 921,000-dot LCD screen. Only the Sony TX-10 has a similarly large LCD, but you can’t utilize all of it for composing and image display.

Despite its size, however, the TG-810’s LCD screen is given a good going-over by the competition in terms of the contrast quality and sharpness of the live view display. It’s also noticeably two-dimensional and a bit dull.

6. The TG-810 does come back swinging with a built-in GPS, electronic compass and manometer. It measures water depth, which can be both a helpful tagging tool as well as another safety indicator.

7. The Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 Camera is equipped with a 5x zoom lens, which is the equivalent of 28–140mm in 35mm format. Optical stabilization is also included in the lens.

8. The TG-810 shoots 720p 30fps HD video that produces very acceptable image quality, with vibrant colors and adequate sound recording. Third-party testers found, however, that the video mode refocusd every few seconds, even if the subject weren’t moving. Another strange flaw is that the LED illuminator, which could aid in recording video underwater, does not work when you are shooting in the video mode.

9. Although the TG-810 has ISO sensitivity specs to 1,600, you can’t set it much higher than ISO 400 or images become noticeably noisy and lose much of their detail, especially at ISO 800.

10.The TG-810’s continuous shooting mode delivers 3.4 fps with 3mp images (0.7 fps standard).

11.The auto-focus system works quickly enough in “standard” situations with strong light or contrast, but shoot in low-light conditions and it tends to search for approximately a second before it can lock focus. The system then needs two seconds to recover before focusing on the next scene or subject. Don’t be surprised when you shoot video for the first time, as you must wait 3.5 seconds after you’ve push the record button before recording the scene and any action.

12.Despite its compact size, the TG-810 is packed with a number of editing options, such as resizing, cropping and saturation. You can also make adjustments at the pixel level with the “Beauty Fix” feature. It consists of three editing tools, Clear Skin, Sparkle Eye and Dramatic Eye.

13.The TG-810 is made easier to use and to capture the pictures you want, especially if you must shoot with just one hand, with its 21 scene modes, which include 4 for underwater photography modes. Select any of the 8 art filters to add a personal creative touch to your images.

14.The quality of images from the Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 Camera can only be rated as average, and when shooting at a low ISO number. View your photos on a computer screen or make mid-range-sized prints and the image quality has much more pop because Olympus added strong default sharpening.

15.This may be a rougher moment for the TG-810 than any mountaintop or raging river. There is no question it is built to withstand these kinds of adventures, but it doesn’t quite equal the competition when it comes to image quality. Part of the reason you find room in your backpack for this camera (or its competitors) is so you can record a trip you probably won’t make again, which means you want to bring back the best images possible.

Add a price of $350 to $400 and the Olympus Stylus Tough TG-810 Camera may be tough on your wallet too.

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