Olympus Tough TG-1 iHS - No Compromise Ruggedness

Introduction and Physique

You 'Gotta Be Tough

It's been 10 years since the launch of Nokia's 7650, which was probably the first cellphone with a camera that a lot of us in this country have encountered. The idea seemed rather superfluous at first, especially since  the photos that it produced were only 460 x 640, or roughly 0.3 megapixels. Add that to the lack of any reliable social sharing platform like Facebook. A decade on, and now cellphones without  cameras are the exception, and you have models with 8-megapixel shooters with high-speed wireless Internet to boot. It won't be very long until compact cameras will become obsolete, unless they toughen up. There are still plenty of people who still like taking pictures at the beach or out in the wilderness, places where no one would dare bring their precious smartphone or even DSLR. 

That's where rugged cameras come in. The GoPro line of video cameras has seen much success for action and adventure filmmakers - so much so that Sony and JVC are getting in on the action. As for still cameras, Pentax has been making their waterproof Optio cameras for a while now, and for the longest time they were the only real option for such products. Now that the compact digital camera market is under pressure from high-end smartphones, other manufacturers have joined the fray, such as Nikon with its AW100 and Olympus with its Tough TG-1 iHS.

Among this year's crop of outdoorsy shooters, the TG-1 is most certainly the chunkiest, with most of the other rugged cameras having slimmer form factors. While this may be a letdown for a compact camera, the extra heft may actually prove to be an advantage for adventurers since it won't be as easy to lose or misplace. The most probable cause for the TG-1's size is its large f/2.0 lens, which is what distinguishes this shooter from the rest of the pack. An aperture or lens opening of f/2.0 means that the TG-1 can collect more light for its 12-megapixel sensor, which translates to sharper pictures in low light even without flash. Prior to this, only premium compacts like Canon's S100 and Nikon's P310 had such large apertures.