Buy Olympus TG-310 Digital Camera – Blue (14MP, 3.6x Wide Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD – Review
- New
List Price: £159.99
04
Feb 2012
UK Discount Olympus TG-310 Digital Camera – Blue (14MP, 3.6x Wide Optical Zoom) 2.7 inch LCD Deal
It’s good but could be better…,
I’ve had this camera now for a few days and have taken a dozen or so pictures so this is just an initial views and thoughts.
I have dunked it into some water so it seems good so far in terms of its waterproof-ness, I’ll be giving it a proper test in a couple of weeks. I wanted somehting that could take some punishment and not take up too much room which it does. It also has a tripod mount and takes 720p movies with sound which were another 2 features I wanted.
It has a good number of features, the magic filters look decent and I’ll probably use them. The 3D picture is to me a gimmick, I don’t have a 3D TV and nor is the screen on this camera 3D so useless – a feature I didn’t want to pay for but no alternatives sadly.
Notable disappointments so far are its indoor picture quality; the flash over-exposures and objects look white-washed. Also the zoom was disappointing, the model up (TG 610) has larger range of zoom as I believe- plus that model can be taken down to 5m water depth, but I was limited on money. However I bought this camera for it’s rugged features and the fact it can be taken into water and dropped, I was aware I would have to sacifice some features such as the zoom, but disappointed nonetheless.
The buttons are a tad small but nothing to worry about. The navigation is quite intuitive once you get use to it, after all the less external buttons there are, the more waterproof it’ll be. So it uses a scrolling action with the left and right buttons to get to the main features it has. The panoramic setting I like as it takes the photos automatically once you overlap it with the previous photo.
Overall it feels solid, takes good outdoor pictures and looks good too. It’s slimmer than previous models and can fit into your pocket which is another reason I bought it. In doing so though, it reduced the zoom range and some picture quality. The 14MP sensor also is too much for this camera which is the reason I think for some reduced picture quality. This is due to the ‘noise’ created, for everyday pictures 10MP is perfectly fine and I would have been happier paying less to get this. Other than this, a good camera.
Additional:
After taking this camera on holiday I have come back with a non-functional camera! Like a good number of waterproof camera owners I was unfortunate enough to have water enter. About 15 pictures were taken before white lines appeared and then it died. Any consolation is that the quality of the pictures weren’t bad underwater, it was in the sea so the turbidity of the water wouldn’t have helped.
Low-light situations the pictures weren’t as good and the camera had some difficulty. Daylight absolutely fine and crisp shots. Magic filters were particulary fun to play around with. Again zoom I was disappointed with and the inclusion of an anti-shake would have been good. My advice, if you are going away and want some underwater shots, take a underwater disposable and get a decent camera for land- after all most of the shots will be taken on land. A compact superzoom such as Lumix FZ45 I would recommend for those not wanting SLR level cameras.
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|Underwater Adventure!,
I bought the little Olympus as I wanted an easy to use point and shoot that I did’nt have to worry about getting wet, or sandy. The additional ability to take pictures when snorkling sold me.
As previously mentioned, the buttons are a little on the small side and the autofocus can be a little slow, but no real issues.
The waterproofing works!! I dropped the camera whilst sailing in to approx. 10 metres of sea water – it also took two hard bounces before disappearing over the side. 18 hours later, I managed to get someone to dive down and retrieve it. Amazingly enough, it still works perfectly!!
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|Better than expected,
Bought this camera for my partner to take on holidays, our last one got wet and died on the last holiday. Bought it for the waterproof feature, didnt expect it to be as good a camera. More advanced than we are, excellent panoramic funtion, great software. Still not tried to get it wet!
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