2023 Weekly Challenge Week 48: Olympus Tough TG 620

 Earlier this year I reviewed the Olympus Tough 8010, a camera that is nearly indestructible but that's really all it has going for it. Last week I shot a better version of a Tough series camera a mid-range Tough TG-620.

The king of waterproof cameras is the Olympus Tough TGX series.  Sadly even a TG1 commands insanely high resale prices so getting ahold of one for cheap is really hard to find at a price that warrants my "fun digicam budget".

So today I'll review the best Waterproof camera I own and for a small sensor compact it's relatively solid even if you don't take the water/dust and shock resistant build into factor.

At first glance the TG 620 is a pretty unassuming little waterproof camera.  It has the offset lens design which can be a challenge when trying to shoot two handed and like all waterproof pocket cameras has an internal optical zoom so no lens extends when the camera is powered on or zoomed in.

Released in 2012 it has a pretty standard 1/2.3" 12 MP CMOS sensor.  Being a CMOS sensor does give it a slight edge to ISO noise and it did a perfectly fine job up to around ISO 1250 when I used it indoors.  For a small sub 1" pocket camera getting useable shots at ISO 1250 is actually pretty solid.

Startup and shut down times are nearly instant, thanks in large part to not having an extending lens. Menu operation is smooth and the UI is vastly improved over the Tough 8010.  It has a really nice shutter button for the size of the camera as well.

Other controls such as the 4 way joystick and zoom toggle are a little small; but it is very uncommon to see a pocket camera with an actual joypad control vs the more standard 4 way D pad buttons with the OK in the middle.

The lens on the TG620 is also the sharpest least distortion internal zoom lens of any internal zoom pocket camera I own easily beating both the Tough 8010 and the Sony T300 by a fairly wide margin.

Overall this camera would still fall just outside of a pocket camera I'd take out as a daily shooter which would comprise of the Panasonic ZS100, ZS50, Canon Powershot S90 and Olympus XZ-1.  It easily ranks in the upper half of pocket cameras I enjoy shooting which will likely save it from the chopping block (the Olympus Tough 8010 on the other hand yeah that can go.)

It's not a perfect pocket camera by any means.  Its short 5x optical zoom is only a 3.9 apeture while at wide angle.  This makes it fairly slow and limits what you can do with it indoors.

This camera has one unique feature, an LED assisted macro mode. It has limited useage and I wouldn't try using it with anything moving such as an insect but for a small sensor camera it did pretty good at picking out small details on this sandwhich, getting it in focus in a room with very low ambient light otherwise.

 

 

Altough I can't compare this camera to a more flagship waterproof camera like the Olympus Tough TG5 or the 1" sensor waterproof Sealife camera if I was in a situation where I needed something waterproof such as while wading or swimming or if I was on a vacation that had water based activites that would be high risk for other cameras; I certainly could get some decent shots out of this camera.  

 

Sure the detail falls off at 100% crop and sure it has a fairly limited Dynamic Range to work with due to being a small sensor CMOS chip, but it can still deliver some shots that look better then my Cellphone which marks it off as a win in my book.

Overall it was a lot more enjoyable to shoot and had much more consistent output results the the Olympus 8010 and was also more consistent then the previous week's Canon Powershot ELPH SD630; granted this camera is 6 years newer.

So while I can't give this a glowing review for every situation as it can at times come up short; if someone was looking for a camera for a high-risk situation that can be bought for cheap and still had serviceable controls, operation lag and output quality; I certainly could recommend this camera to them.

To wrap it up enjoy some photos I took with this camera into the first two days of the last month of 2023: