Introduction

Ease of Use

Over the past few years, we have reviewed a number of increasingly rugged “tough” cameras here on Photography Blog. Of late, camera manufacturers have been devoting more and more resources to this market segment – which is no wonder given the ebbing profitability of the more “traditional” digital compacts in the wake of an onslaught of continually improving camera phones. These ruggedised cameras all appeared to share one trait: for all their toughness and ability to withstand conditions that would prove lethal to a regular shooter, they tended to come with slowish and arguably mediocre lenses that prevented them from taking truly good pictures, especially in low light.

Enter the Olympus Tough TG-1 and its 25-100mm (eq.) f/2.0-4.9 lens. The maximum aperture of f/2.0 at the wide end is unusually bright for a compact camera – and doubly so for an all-weather model. And while it’s two and a half stops slower at the 100mm equivalent setting, f/4.9 is still not too bad (many compacts make do with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or even f/6.7 at the telephoto end).

Thoughtfully, Olympus has applied a water-repellent coating to the front element of the lens to reduce the possibility of stubborn water droplets ruining your pictures when shooting away in the rain or right after taking the camera out of the water. And while the lens itself is – of course – not interchangeable, you can at least use an add-on teleconverter (TCON-T01) as well as a fisheye conversion lens (FCON-T01) with the Olympus TG-1, making it one of the more versatile compacts out there. Do note that you’ll need the optional CLA-T01 adapter to mount either of these accessory lenses. The converters have the same waterproof rating as the camera itself.

The lens boasts some serious close-up capabilities. It has a “regular” macro mode allowing you to focus down to 10cm while still being able to use the optical zoom; a super macro mode with a minimum focus distance of 1cm and the lens fixed at the 75mm equivalent zoom setting; and a super macro with LED - “S-Macro LED” - mode, which enables you to use the camera’s LED illuminator for focusing (though only for subjects that are at least 7cm from the front lens element).

Front	Rear

The Olympus Tough TG-1 also features a sensor-shift image stabilisation mechanism, which in principle enables you to take sharp hand-held shots at shutter speeds that would otherwise be critically slow for the focal length used. Do not expect it to be as effective as the five-axis IS found in Olympus’s newer and higher-specified cameras though. Note that in quiet environments, you might hear a faint sound coming from the camera with the image stabiliser turned on.

While the TG-1 lacks a “proper” hand-grip, the front plate has a sizeable rubberised area with a raised ridge that provides for a surprisingly secure hold, even when shooting underwater. In fact, the entire camera feels a lot more robust in the hand than you’d think based on a cursory look at the product shots. Having said that, the Olympus TG-1 still handles much like a “traditional” digital compact. Unusually for a ruggedised camera, it even has a mode dial for quick access to the main shooting modes. These include intelligent Auto, (iAuto), Programmed Auto (P), “Super Sport,” Scene and “Magic.” You can even save your preferred settings to two custom memory banks (C1 and C2), just like on a professional camera. In light of this, it’s somewhat disappointing that the camera does not offer a manual exposure mode. The mode dial has firm detents and is thus not particularly prone to accidental bumps. If anything, the dial is a little too hard to rotate, at least with wet fingers.

Apart from the mode dial, there’s only a handful of physical controls on the Olympus TG-1. These include the on/off button and shutter release, a pair of zoom rockers, a dedicated video record button, a traditional four-way pad with centred OK button, plus playback and menu buttons. Notable by absence is any sort of direct-button access to exposure compensation and ISO sensitivity settings – unfortunately. you have to delve into the menu to modify these. As with many other Olympus compacts, there is an optional “tap control” function that allows you to perform certain operations by tapping the top, back and sides of the camera. This can come in handy when shooting underwater.

The Olympus TG-1 has a number of menus, including a Quick menu – accessible via the OK button – plus Shooting, Movie, Playback and Setup menus. In Programmed Auto, the Quick menu gives you access to the flash settings, macro, self-timer, exposure compensation, white balance, ISO sensitivity, drive mode and resolution. In the other modes, you typically get a narrower range of options to choose from. The Shooting menu is reserved for less often used (or modified) settings such as compression, image stabilisation, digital zoom, shadow adjustment, AF illumination, date stamp etc. Somewhat surprisingly, you also need to delve into this menu to set your desired focusing and metering modes.

Front	Side

The camera’s rear screen is a generous 3” Organic LED display with a resolution of 610,000 dots. This monitor has excellent viewing angles and a good sharpness to images and text alike, but its colours are not always representative of what you’ll see after downloading your photos to a computer and viewing them on a calibrated screen.

The Olympus Tough TG-1 has a very decent movie mode. The available video resolutions range from VGA to 720p to 1080p Full HD, and you can use the optical zoom while filming. What’s more, the camera has a pair of stereo microphones on its top plate, which are capable of recording above-average quality audio. Importantly, you can also shoot movies in Macro and S-Macro LED modes, enabling you to capture tiny beings in their natural habitats – an important consideration for an “adventure” camera. The Olympus TG-1 has an HDMI out port allowing users to play back their videos on an HD TV.

The camera’s rugged credentials are among the best we’ve seen from Olympus. It’s waterproof down to depths of 12m for up to an hour, freezeproof to -10 °C, crushproof to 100kg and able to survive drops from a height of up to 2m. The battery / memory card compartment and connection ports (a multi-terminal and an HDMI connector) are protected by sturdy covers with double locks. The body is metal, and build quality is very good, as you would expect from a camera of this class. Those who wish to go deeper than the specified 12m can purchase an additional PT-053 housing which allows them to take the cameras to a depth of 45m, although it costs almost as much as the camera itself.

Memory Card Slot	Battery Compartment

In use, we have found the Olympus Tough TG-1 to be faster and more responsive than any other all-weather camera from Olympus. Previous models in the Tough range tended to suffer from slow focusing and a sluggish interface – thankfully, both of these have been addressed in this model. That doesn’t mean it’s on a par with your SLR camera, of course – erratically moving subjects can still prove a challenge for the auto focus system, but that’s to be expected from a compact camera.

In terms of continuous shooting, the TG-1 does a very decent 5fps in 12-megapixel mode, with up to 60fps available at a reduced resolution. As you’d expect from an “outdoor” camera, the Olympus TG-1 features an integrated GPS module for automatic geotagging and creating GPS track logs. These track logs are stored in the GPSLOG directory on the memory card. A built-in manometer allows the camera to display the current altitude or water depth and warn you when approaching the maximum depth it’s rated for. The camera has a slimline built-in flash, which isn’t particularly powerful but surprisingly, it’s compatible with the Olympus Wireless RC Flash System.

The Olympus Tough TG-1 is powered by a proprietary lithium-ion battery which has to be charged in-camera, unless you purchase a separately sold UC-90 charger. Photos and movies are recorded on SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards. And while the camera does not feature an integrated Wi-Fi module, it’s at least compatible with Eye-Fi's wireless memory cards.

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this review were taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 4Mb.

During the test, the Olympus Tough TG-1 produced images of fairly good quality. A pixel-packed 1/2.33”-type sensor was never going to produce DSLR-like IQ, and it's clear that the camera's image processor applies some noise reduction to the images even at base ISO, which robs them of ultimate detail. Having said that, the camera produces very nice prints up to 8”x10” and a bit beyond as long as you stay below ISO 1600. The ISO 3200 setting is still usable for smaller prints and onscreen viewing, although overall saturation suffers at that point. ISO 6400 is clearly a step too far, with heavy detail smearing and a very noticeable loss of saturation. Overall, the image quality of the TG-1 is quite good for its class, and clearly a step up from its predecessors; thanks in a large part to the excellent lens.

Noise

The Olympus TG-1 has 7 sensitivity settings ranging from ISO 100 to ISO 6400. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 100 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)
ISO 6400 (100% Crop)

Focal Range

The lens has a 35mm equivalent focal range of 25-100mm, which is quite useful.

25mm	100mm

Sharpening

Images from the Olympus TG-1 tend to be a little oversharpened, probably in an effort to mask the effects of noise reduction, which often lead to a lack of fine detail. That said, you can still apply some post-capture sharpening in an image editor if you’re so inclined.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

File Quality

There are two JPEG quality settings available on the Olympus TG-1, including Fine and Normal.

12M Fine (100% Crop)	12M Normal (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Olympus TG-1 manages to keep chromatic aberrations to a minimum but you can still run into a bit of purple fringing when shooting at the wide end or in macro mode. The crops below show what you should expect in the worst case.

Chromatic Aberrations 1 (100% Crop)	Chromatic Aberrations 2 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Olympus TG-1 has a macro and a super macro mode. In the latter, you can get as close as 1cm to your subject but as the below example demonstrates, properly lighting your subject can be difficult. To address this, the Olympus TG-1 has a super macro with LED (S-Macro LED) function, in which the built-in LED illuminator is used to light the subject. However, this mode requires that you hold the camera at least 7cm from the subject, meaning the camera cannot capture such a tight field of view as shown below.

Macro	Macro (100% Crop)

Flash

The available flash settings are Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Forced On and Forced Off. Rather surprisingly for this class of camera, the built-in flash can also be used to wirelessly control a number of compatible flash units that are part of the Olympus Wireless RC Flash System. When used in this mode, all remote flashes need to be set to Channel CH1, Group A.

Off - Wide Angle (25mm)	Fill-in - Wide Angle (25mm)
Off - Telephoto (100mm)	Fill-in - Telephoto (100mm)

The built-in flash has a red-eye reduction mode but as shown here it cannot fully eliminate the problem.

Fill-in	Fill-in (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night

The TG-1’s minimum shutter speed is 4 seconds in the Night Scene mode but in P mode, the camera will not pick a shutter speed slower than ½ second, which may be inadequate if the scene is poorly illuminated. For the shot below the camera picked a shutter speed of ½ second, aperture of f/2 and a sensitivity of ISO 400.

Night	Night (100% Crop)

Magic Filters

There are 12 so-called “magic filters” on the Olympus Tough TG-1, accessible via a dedicated position on the mode dial. These include, Pop Art, Pinhole, Fisheye, Drawing, Watercolour, Punk, Sparkle, Dramatic Tone, Soft Focus, Reflection, Miniature and Fragmented.

Pop Art	Pin Hole
Fish Eye	Soft Focus
Punk	Sparkle
Watercolor	Reflection
Miniature	Fragmented
Dramatic	Drawing

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Olympus Tough TG-1 camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera / Main Menu

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Memory Card Slot

Battery Compartment

Conclusion

The Olympus Tough TG-1 is one of the most advanced “tough” cameras in the market. Its remarkable rugged credentials – waterproof to 12m, crushproof to 100kg, freezeproof to -10 °C and capable of withstanding drops from a height of 2m – are paired with a traditional design, down to the inclusion of a conventional mode dial, and an excellent 25-100mm (eq.) f/2.0-4.9 lens that allows it to stand out from the crowd.

Its image quality – while obviously not in the same league as a digital SLR or compact system camera – is definitely better than that of its predecessors, thanks in a large part to this lens. Olympus has also addressed a problem that has plagued many cameras in the Tough range, namely the slow operational and AF speed. Again, you shouldn't compare the Olympus Tough TG-1 to a DSLR, but among all-weather compacts it's clearly one of the faster and more responsive offerings.

In terms of features, it ticks almost all the boxes with a manometer, GPS, Full HD movies with stereo sound; and even offers some unexpected extras like the ability to take conversion lenses, wirelessly control compatible remote flashguns or store your settings in custom memory banks. In light of all this it's a bit of a let-down, then, that manual exposure adjustments are not supported, and there's no direct-button access to sensitivity and exposure compensation, either.

Overall though, the Olympus Tough TG-1 is a solid camera in more than one way, and one that easily earns our “Recommended” award.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4
Value for money	4

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Olympus Tough TG-1 from around the web.

Specifications

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