Olympus TG-610

Olympus has always been something of a specialist in waterproof compacts. However, the firm has been facing increasing competition over the last few years, since all the major camera brands have been bringing out alternatives. Olympus has fought back with a range of great-value models, including the TG-310 and the TG-610 we're testing today. This mid-range model is waterproof to 5 metres, shockproof to 1.5 metres, has an all-metal body, a high-definition screen, a 5x zoom and a stabilisation system ... all for around £200.

Handling

As soon as you pick up the Olympus TG-610, you can feel that the difference in price compared with the TG-310 is justified. The TG-610 feels more reassuringly sturdy—the materials feel more robust and the camera itself is more pleasant to handle. We particularly like the fact that the soft rubbery plastic covering the buttons on the TG-310 has been replaced with a much more pleasant metal finish here. Similarly, the TG-610 has a cover that protects the lens when the camera's switched off and a sleek D-pad instead of a classic four-way arrow key. This is easy to use and to grip even with wet hands, but we would have liked the D-pad to be little higher up on the camera body, as you have to bend your thumb down a bit to use it. All in all though, our only real regret in the camera's design is the vertical zoom control. This isn't particularly practical to use and it feels strangely spongy when you press it. However, it makes a good thumb-rest and helps you keep firm hold of the camera.


The TG-610's screen is really something else! Although its 3-inch size is nothing out of the ordinary, the 920,000-dot definition makes it one of the highest-def compact screens we've seen to date. In fact, in this price range, even non-waterproof compacts usually make do with half the definition of the TG-610 screen, and some are still using dodgy 230,000-dot displays!

The screen is very bright too, which means you can still see what you're doing most of the time in bright sunlight (but we'd love to see a proper matte screen in a camera one day). Although the screen is perfect for for lining up shots, when viewing back pictures you'll need to bear in mind that the strong contrast makes light greys look white, gives dark greys a blue tint and that colours aren't reproduced particularly accurately.

This camera has the same interface as seen in other recent Olympus compacts. It's reasonably clear but isn't without its problems, such as lags and slow-downs when you switch to exposure previews or white balance previews (although this isn't as bad as in last year's models). Similarly, the Quick menu always opens on the shooting mode option rather than on the last option you used, which would be particularly handy in P mode.

And don't even get us started on Olympus' trademark main menu—even though everything is arranged in tabs, the endless lists of options and settings can seem confusing and can sometimes be off-putting.

Responsiveness

The TG-610 has the same electronics as the TG-310, and so it's no surprise to see that the two cameras behaved almost identically in our tests—with barely a tenth of a second's difference, in fact!

The TG-610 takes around two seconds to start up and to save a photo, which is within average for current compacts. The autofocus does its job well in decent light but goes to pieces when the light starts to fade—nothing to get excited about here, then.


That said, these bog-standard times may not look like anything special, but they're already a huge improvement on the µ Tough 8010.

Picture Quality

The TG-610 has the same sensor as the µ Tough-8010, and our ISO sensitivity tests soon showed up the weaknesses of this 14-Megapixel CCD.


Even if the TG-610 doesn't manage to perform any minor miracles, there has been a visible improvement on last year's models, which could barely take a decent, usable image at 400 ISO. At the same ISO setting, the TG-610 takes pictures that still make acceptable 8" x 10" prints. However, at higher ISO settings things soon get worse, and at 800 ISO noise and smoothing are too heavy for anything other than 4" x 6" prints.


The limits of this 28-140 mm lens are soon apparent too. Shots are only sharp and clear in the middle of the frame at wide-angle settings, while the edges are clearly hazy. At telephoto settings the whole frame looks hazy. Although the results are still fine for an 8" x 10" print, and look flawless when viewed on a computer screen, you won't really be able to crop shots or make larger-sized prints without a visible loss in quality ... which kind of defeats the point of having 14 Megapixels.

Video

The TG-610 films 720p video with picture quality that's acceptable but nothing out of the ordinary. It tends to under-expose indoor scenes, making the video look a bit dark—although this does help to keep speckling noise and harsh, blinding bright zones to a minimum. Note that the optical zoom can be used in video mode.

There's a single microphone for mono sound, which is pretty much OK. In very quiet scenes it does pick up some noise from the camera (probably the autofocus or stabilisation system working) but that's soon covered up by even slight background noises.