Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: geesbert on April 18, 2010, 04:51:04 pm

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: geesbert on April 18, 2010, 04:51:04 pm

I am looking for a tough camera, it has to survive the beach, snorkeling, snowboarding and most of all my two year old, though she really loves my Leica...

I think I narrowd it down to either the Olympus tough 8010 or the Lumix ts2.
I ruled out the sony tx5 , the pentax w90 and the canon 10whatever waterproof for various reasons.


pro Lumix: said to have better image performance, slightly faster lens, does 2:3 which i like when I mix cameras for drugstore processing, looks nicer

pro Oly tough: charges through usb (no additional charger on holidays), better button layout, longer zoom, I imagine the rim control thing to be quite useful with gloves.

What do you think?

is there a direct comparison somewhere, I couldn't find anything on the web. what other tough  cameras  are out there? I don't want to dive with it, so a point'n'shoot with a diving case is not an option.


stefan

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: geesbert on April 23, 2010, 01:07:40 pm

Thanks for no replies, I got the Olympus 8010. my first impressions:

As I mentioned, I like the idea of USB charging, but then those idiots used a propritary cable, which at first sight looks like a small usb plug, but it doesn't fit. Will they ever learn? I can't believe it....

the menu looks a bit old fashioned, everything is a bit on the slow side, image quality is mediocre, shutter lag is abysmal, start-up time is too long, screen black-out is way too long, auto-focus is rather hit-and-miss, sharpness is not really there, noise is just acceptable. Anything good? don't know yet.

Again I had to learn how brilliant the handling and the user interface of the Ricoh GRD III is, my most favorite compact yet, which feel like a camera, not like a camera-phone like the olympus.

I guess I'll keep it anyway, I am not going back to diving cases just for beach images.

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: inthesouthofireland on April 23, 2010, 03:21:33 pm

A really helpful "Buying Guide: Digital Cameras Features Search" can be found here:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare.asp (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare.asp)
At the first line item, "format", select "waterproof". Then scroll down and click the "compare" button. The results page will show 28 waterproof compacts.
Hope this helps (others)  

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on April 24, 2010, 03:42:23 am

Google image search gave me this:

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: tesfoto on April 24, 2010, 04:14:05 am

Quote from: geesbert

I am looking for a tough camera, it has to survive my two year old, though she really loves my Leica...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=150435318405 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150435318405)

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: Rob C on April 24, 2010, 04:14:55 am

Quote from: ChristophC

Google image search gave me this:

Not very waterproof, Chris...

Rob C

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: teo.karp on April 24, 2010, 05:21:45 am

Quote from: geesbert

is there a direct comparison somewhere, I couldn't find anything on the web. what other tough  cameras  are out there? I don't want to dive with it, so a point'n'shoot with a diving case is not an option.


stefan

a test  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfe66TUsK00 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfe66TUsK00)

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on April 24, 2010, 12:39:09 pm

Quote from: Rob C

Not very waterproof, Chris...

Rob C

Doh ... !

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: chex on April 24, 2010, 02:50:57 pm

How about an old nikonos and some rolls of film?

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: geesbert on April 30, 2010, 10:44:35 am

no film in my bag anymore...

I returned the olympus, it was a brief, but very unpleasant encounter. it just feels like a digicam of 8year's vintage. sorry, this is 2010, I don't want to wait for my camera, it should wait for me!


I got myself a Sony TX5 instead. image quality is slightly better, operation is much snappier, it's nearly instant on, it is much smaller, the touch-interface isn't bad either, I think I like it.

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: BernardLanguillier on April 30, 2010, 07:42:12 pm

Quote from: geesbert

I got myself a Sony TX5 instead. image quality is slightly better, operation is much snappier, it's nearly instant on, it is much smaller, the touch-interface isn't bad either, I think I like it.

Yep, the TX5 is good as long as you are not too picky when reviewing your images at 100% on screen.

Cheers,
Bernard

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: geesbert on May 02, 2010, 01:21:38 pm

Quote from: BernardLanguillier

Yep, the TX5 is good as long as you are not too picky when reviewing your images at 100% on screen.

Cheers,
Bernard

I stopped doing that for any camera with a sensor smaller than 24x36mm.

Title: which tough camera?
Post by: lightstand on May 03, 2010, 05:21:20 pm

also interested in a versatile camera and am wondering if anyone has used the panasonic lumix dmc-ts2?  If so I would be interested to hear your honest opinion. thanks jeff