Olympus Tough TG-6 Waterproof Camera, Black

I bought this as a new everyday-carry camera after finally getting sick of the pointless madness of smartphone cameras. It's worth it, if you ask me.Good stuff:- Decent picture quality in daylight, but likely outperformed by a fancy phone.- Outstanding picture quality at night, way beyond what any phone I've seen can do.- Decent optical zoom, though only a little bit of it.- Easy to cram into a back pocket without worrying about damaging it. Nice build quality without being too excessively bulky.- Starts up quickly; ready to go in about one second from pressing the power button. I really appreciate this, since one of my biggest frustrations with phone cameras is how they often take insane amounts of time just to start up.- Takes RAW photos.- Manual focus, which I was surprised to find because I was assured by the reviews I read that it did not have manual focus. It sure does, though, and it's surprisingly good. The super-macro setting is very impressive too.- MicroUSB charging, which is less nice than USB-C, but much better than the terrible proprietary connector that the old models had.- Impressive waterproofing. Unless you're a scuba diver, this is basically a true underwater camera (and if you are, I hear there's a deep-water housing available too). It's not like phones tend to be where they claim it's waterproof, but then specify in the fine print that it's only good to one meter of depth for half an hour or whatever - no, this is a camera you can actually take swimming with you.Bad stuff:- There doesn't seem to be any exposure bracketing function apart from the internal HDR scene mode, which is frustrating because the scene mode processing is terrible (see next point).- Seems to have an extremely mediocre image processor, maybe not even any better than the one included in the earliest models in the Olympus Tough series. The JPEGs it produces are extremely crunchy (RAW is worth using for this reason), and the scene mode filters are kind of a joke. You can't capture RAWs when using them, and it only saves 3-MP photos despite this being a 12-MP camera (which is already a little on the low side compared to what phones are doing these days, especially for a camera that costs about the same as a decent phone). If you aren't planning on shooting RAWs all the time and doing all your processing afterwards, I really don't recommend this camera.- Almost every preset mode locks out most of the manual controls, seemingly for no reason. For example, if you're using the candlelight mode, you're simply not allowed to use manual focus. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for this, since the focus is entirely independent of anything candlelight mode is actually changing (exposure, aperture, and sensitivity, I guess), so this makes no sense. Also, every time the camera silently changes your settings like this, it doesn't change them back when you return to a mode where they're allowed again, making it an ongoing hassle to go through and put everything back how you want it. The frustration of this is quickly training me to never touch any of the scene modes or other presets. It's really aggravating to go out and take a bunch of photos, only to discover that none of them were saved as good-quality RAWs because the camera silently turned off RAW capture on me.- Video files are limited to 4GB in size, even when using an exFAT SD card (so this is not a real technical limitation, just an arbitrary one imposed by lazy code). Worse still, they simply did not bother to add any way to make it automatically restart recording when hitting the file size limit (which would have been a trivial software modification that is already seen in other Olympus cameras), and if even that wasn't bad enough, there aren't even any low-resolution video format options that could squeeze more time out of the 4GB limit. The longest video you can record with this camera is 29 minutes long, period. All of the possible workarounds have been defeated, seemingy for no reason, and most formats are limited to even shorter durations (around 10 minutes for 1080p60, 5 minutes for 4k30, and just a few seconds for the high-speed modes). Despite the marketing suggesting otherwise, this is NOT a video camera. If you're buying this to record video, expect to be disappointed.Overall, I'd say that this is a decent camera to use for basic indoor and outdoor photography, especially in low-light conditions. While it's hardly a proper DSLR, it has enough manual controls to at least not be a downgrade from smartphones in that regard, and it's a lot more likely to survive an exciting trip than either of those are. It's far from perfect, and the video limitations are a huge letdown, but I think I do still prefer it over a horribly busted smartphone camera.

Here's a couple of photos I took on the first day without changing any settings. One is normal, one is with an added filter from an app.This is much better than the phone I've been using. I have a Goppro 8 black and this Tg-6 is better in every regard except it's not quite as good with antishake and the focus makes a little whiring noise thats audible in playback. The video is much better than some footage I've seen on youtube, so it's going to depend a lot on the settings, the camera person and the postprocessing.I bought this for photos. As far as picture quality, it seems to be as good or better than most phones, right out of the box. I feel like it keeps up with most cameras of higher cost and is superior to anything else at this price point.I'm very new to photography, but was getting some good night shots so far. It's actually better than I thought it would be with those indoors shots under incandescent, fluorescent and LED lighting.I'll be using it for landscapes, nature and taking photos in cities and towns. The photo quality is excellent in my opinion and it works great without being to imposing or cluttered. It turns on in maybe two seconds, so I can stop the bike, be sure of a great picture and be moving again, making great time. Some days I get rained on really good and this camera is a perfect addition to my contingency gear. It should also do well in the colder conditions. It feels durable and I'm sure it will do well if I drop it or if it gets crushed around in my baggage on a tough day. I did buy the jj brand lens cap and a glass screen protector to keep from scratching those parts, but thats just extra and not totally necessary.I also picked up the led diffuser accessory for macro photography. Results on a $20 bill are pictured, here. Works perfectly...well worth the extra 35.00 or so, considering the possibilities it unlocks. I'll probably pick up the flash dispersing accessory also, after seeing this work as well as it does.All these things considered, and with hands on, out of the box use, I'll be confident to invest my hard earned dollars in the teleconverter, wide angle and fisheye lenses and maybe even down the line, the deep water case if the opportunity to go diving presents itself. The camera works great with or without them.The firmware on the camera takes a day to learn, with all the little extras embedded in there, but after that navigation is relatively easy. Even though it is I think classified a "point and shoot" everything is customizable- and even more so, once you know a couple of tricks that are mentioned online in various places. Most anybody however, can simply pick this up, click it on auto mode and get great pictures without confusion.The app (I got for my android) was very easy to connect with. The camera puts out the wifi signal and the phone connects to that, so it can be done without an actual internet connection. Photos import within a few seconds each and can be edited in any other app from there. I take a 4:3 ratio pictures and after importing, crop it to whatever size from there.I'd love to speak on GPS and the Windows Olympus software, but have not gotten that far just yet. From what I've seen, and if you don't know yet, this goes pretty deep with what information you can attach to the photos and video. Pretty sure that if I decided to go that route, I'd be able to automatically have photos all on a map of where they were captured. Geotagging is still a subject of contention these days, though. But it's there if needed along with barometric pressure (manometer), compass and altitude (altimeter?). Can also add a little audio voice note to individual photos as well. It's possible to convert the proprietary file format of the RAW photos to be able to edit on other software if necessary.Only thing left is maybe some filters and a lens hood for extra usefulness, a floating wrist strap for beach and stream excursions, and a respectable case and bag. Those are all extras but now that I know I will be enjoying this camera for many years to come I'm sure it's worth it.