Olympus µ Tough-3000

Waterproof digital cameras seem to fall into two categories. On the one hand, you'll find models costing £250 and more that are technologically similar to the best compacts on the market. On the other hand, you'll find models costing around £150 made with lower-cost components. The Olympus µ Tough-3000, however, is an affordable waterproof compact with decent tech specs, including a wide-angle lens, image stabilisation, 720p video recording and more. So what's the catch?

Handling

So how do you make a camera for under £200 with better tech specs than models that cost twice as much last year? As soon as you pick up the µ Tough-3000 you'll start to understand, as unlike previous µ Tough models, this camera has a plastic casing and its buttons have a soft rubber covering. Although it's not quite got the same 'Playmobil' look and feel as the µ 550 WP, there's a clear contrast with the brand's higher-end models. It is, however, noticeably lighter than the µ Tough-8010 and its more rounded design gives it a sleeker overall look.

The 'tough' part of the Tough-3000's spec is nothing out of the ordinary. It's waterproof to 3 m, shockproof to 1.5 m and resistant to temperatures as low as -10°C. The camera's connections and the locking system for the battery and SD card compartment (see right) are both less impressive than on the brand's higher-spec Tough-8010.



Olympus also seems to have saved money on the screen. Even though you can't really expect anything more than 230,000 dots at this price, I was still disappointed to see a TN panel which looks black when viewed from below. Plus, there's no HyperCrystal treatment like on the brand's top-of-the-range models and the screen is prone to reflections and glare in bright sunlight.

The interface has been simplified to such an extent that the Quick Access menu of most frequently used settings is the only menu that can be accessed directly. The settings menu is hidden at the bottom of the Quick Access menu, which means you have to open it to adjust settings like the flash or even to select macro mode as there's no direct-access flower button. That's really quite annoying.

Responsiveness

The µ Tough range is a good example of just how contradictory the current digital camera market can be. In fact, in certain areas, many of the new basic compacts perform better than their high-end counterparts. The µ Tough-3000 is slow, with a start-up time of 4.6 seconds, an autofocus that's ready in just over a second, a photo-to-photo turnaround time of three seconds and a burst mode of 0.4 fps. It is, however, faster than the brand's higher-end model, which means the just-about-acceptable turnaround time of the Tough-3000 becomes quite simply intolerable in the µ Tough-8010.

The interface can be a bit slow too. The icons for exposure and white balance, for example, take about half a second to display, during which time the camera freezes. Once again, though, the more expensive model doesn't do any better!

Picture quality

The lens is the same used in Olympus' 2009 models, another cost-saving trick that comes as no real surprise. It's not too bad either. In wide-angle mode, pictures are sharp in the middle, and they're a little fuzzier towards the edges in telephoto mode. In fact, in telephoto mode the pictures are a little hazier on the whole. Picture quality is perfectly fine for 20 x 27 cm prints but barrel distortion is very noticeable at the shortest focal length.


Sensitivity has never been a strong point for Olympus compacts, even if the µ Tough-3000 again outperforms the 14-megapixel model in this area. At 400 ISO, the difference is clear. Noise levels are about the same but smoothing is much less pronounced in the cheaper model (compare the contour lines in particular). Nevertheless, the difference isn't huge, and in both cameras the image quickly becomes much less acceptable at 800 ISO.

Video

The µ Tough-3000 films 720p HD video in the Mpeg-4 format. That's the only positive thing I've got to say about the video mode though, as sound recording is fairly average and you can't use the zoom. If a good video mode is important to you, pick a different camera.