OM SYSTEM Olympus TG-6 Red Underwater Camera, Waterproof, Freeze Proof, High Resolution Bright, 4K Video 44x Macro Shooting

For a compact camera I was hoping for good photos, but wasn’t expecting great quality. I was very surprised! This camera is great! It can be a simple point-and-shoot camera, but with some practice, and taking the time to use the various settings, this camera gives excellent results. While kayaking on a river, I wanted to test the underwater feature. I just adjusted the setting, stuck the camera onto the water, and snapped 3 photos. When I saw the results, I was so surprised at the color correction and the high clarity. Every pebble and piece of moss was crystal clear. The water was about 15’ deep. For photo transfer I use the Olympus app. Uploading photos to my iPhone X are a snap. When comparing photos between the TG-6 and my iPhone, the TG-6 is the winner, hands down. I’ve been in photography for 40 years, and have used 35mm, 120mm, and 4x5 film cameras. This little camera wouldn’t beat my old 4x5, but comes close to the other cameras I’ve used. I can’t wait to go snorkeling and really test out the underwater features. I highly recommend getting the lens cap to save the lens from scratches. Always there and easy to use. For a high quality handy travel camera that really delivers, I highly recommend the TG-6. Being a good water proof camera is a huge plus.

This is such a versatile camera. I use it underwater mostly but it is great for topside photography also. I actually had my housing flood at 60 feet, but because the camera is allegedly waterproof to 50 feet, the camera was not damaged. Having said that, even though the camera is advertised as waterproof to 50 feet, I would not trust taking it underwater without the housing. I believe the water pressure without the housing might, indeed, cause a leak in the camera itself. I'm not willing to take that chance. But I feel comfortable that any time my housing floods, my camera is still safe. I have gotten some great images with this little camera and would highly recommend it for novices and experienced photographers alike.

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.

Great camera for a fair price. Pictures are very good, much better than other waterproof cameras I tried. Still, I guess I'm a bit spoiled by my old Canon DSLR. Tons of features most of which I won't use. Stacking and bracketing seem to work well. A couple of minor complaints. First, the battery life isn't great but that's no secret. I bought an extra battery and charger to cope. Second, the lens ring that the camera comes with is purely cosmetic and will not take a lens cap. So, for an additional purchase I got the lens ring adapter which comes with a lens cap. The extra purchases add up and it would be nice if Olympus made the extra battery, charger, and lens ring/cap part of the package at the current price. And finally, and what concerns me the most, is that the zoom lens function is noisy, clearly audible to this old man. The real problem however is that the noise is picked up by the microphone while taking video and produces a disagreeable hum in the background of resulting videos. I'm going to try to contact Olympus to ask if the zoom is normally that noisy or if my unit is defective. We'll see how that works out. Olympus did accept the camera for warranty work on the noisy zoom feature. Hopefully it works properly when I get it back. I got the camera back from Olympus warranty service recently and they told me that it is working fine and that the noise from the zoom lens is normal. So, they have designed a $500 camera that has a zoom lens that is so noisy it is overheard when making a video with the camera. They even had the nerve to suggest using an external mic for recordings.

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.

I own a lot of cameras from 4X5 view cameras, Hasselblad, Canon EOS 5D MkIV and mirrorless cameras. So why would I buy this camera? I wanted a pocket sized camera that was rugged, water resistant and freeze resistant. I travel frequently to Alaska and shoot in difficult conditions. I wanted a camera that could shoot raws for processing in DXO Photolab, Lightroom and Photoshop. I did not expect professional quality images - just a go anywhere camera. The TG-6 seems to fill that need. It is ironic that an experienced photographer can pick up a professional camera and start shooting right away whereas with this camera you need to spend some time learning its many features to get the best results. The TG-6 has many modes to choose from including panoramas, HDR, focus stacking and macro as well as micro photography. Some of the auto modes and special features only work as jpg images. It also offers "manual" modes like aperture and shutter speed priority. These are much more limited than full size cameras, but are workable with a little practice. I mainly used aperture priority raw shooting. Aperture settings are mainly controlled by the focal length. In other words the aperture will decrease with focal length. Manually setting the aperture is very limited. For example, at maximum zoom the default aperture is f6.3 which can be set to f4.9 or f18. That's it. Cameras with small sensors typically do not do well with small apertures. They lose sharpness. Thus, you would likely want to use f6.3. Autofocus seems to be reasonably accurate using a Spyder Lenscal. You can lock focus by pressing the shutter half-way and then reframing the shot. Good depth of field may need some practice. The 12 megapixel raw images definitely need some processing. I'm using DXO Photolab 3 which has a profile for this camera. Some additional sharpening can be achieved with the NIK raw presharpener used very sparingly. The images won't hold up to enlarging to any great extent, but will be adequate for screen display and Facebook. Large prints could be problematical. Avoid high ISO's as they will be very noisy. The automatic features of this camera are intriguing. Macro and micro shots are amazing. You will need the ring light attachment, however. Panoramas are easy to do, but may have darker streaks where they knit together. This can be adjusted out with software. The HDR capability is very very limited compared to larger cameras. Night shooting settings are easy to use, but will produce noisy images of little value. I have not tested the underwater capabilities. Nor have I tested the video to any great extend. Not comments on those modes. I prefer cameras with real viewfinders. The screen on this camera is limited, but adequate even in bright sunlight. The old saying that the best camera to shoot with is the one you have with you is very true with the TG-6. It is more versatile and rugged than a cell phone. It shoots raws and you can cary it anywhere. It is not a professional camera, of course, but it will do very well once you learn how to shoot with it.

My long story (Pros and cons are below for brevity): I bought this camera as a birthday gift for myself in August 2019. As soon as I started using the camera, I regretted the purchase but I feel better now. I have taken about 4,500 shots (most deleted). So far, I have used the SCN, A, P, C1, C2, Underwater, Macro, and auto. In other words, I am still getting used to it and haven't taken enough photos to say if I am at a 2 or 4, so my rating is a 3. AUTO MODE is complete and utter trash. Before Thanksgiving the options I used the most were scenery (landscape), aperture priority, and Macro. When I went to visit family for Thanksgiving, my camera setting was in macro when they decided to do a quick cousin picture. I had to be in the picture so I hurriedly turned the dial to Auto before handing it over...thinking it would work. NEGATIVE! The camera flash wasn't activated, the ISO was put to 1600 and the photo was extremely grainy. Afterward, I tried to turn the flash on and it was grayed out. I've owned about six point and shoot cameras before this one. All of them gave me the ability to turn the flash on in Auto mode. Typically I can choose, full flash, no flash, or auto flash. The auto mode in the TG-6 does not give you the option. The setting was evening time around 6 PM. The lighting was low because it was getting dark outside and we were on the patio. My suggestion, use custom 1 or 2 and set the maximum ISO to 400. Custom gives you the flexibility to choose the flash. Also set-up the camera early so you won't be caught off-guard. As I mentioned before I have had other point and shoots. My point and shoots from 2002-2010 either had an internal lens protector that closed and protected the lens or an external lens cover. The TG-6 has neither, I bought a converter that had a lens cover. I'm astonished a $450 camera would not have a lens cover. I accidentally dropped the camera. The strap was difficult to pull through all the way and because I didn't have it fully pulled, it fell onto the concrete when I was walking in the parking garage. I had it for about one week at that time. Since I had a screen protector on the camera, the screen is fine, the protector cracked and chipped. The camera survived. The MANUAL is online, which works for me. Yes, you need the manual. I have bought an external charger with extra batteries. However, I haven't used the extra batteries yet. I had a beach day. I was on the beach from 10 AM - 4 PM. I took a combination of 1,003 pictures and videos. My battery had about 60% energy left. I am impressed by the battery life. Speaking of a beach day, the day I went to the beach, the water was livid. The sand filled waves pummeled me underwater, stole my glasses, and almost stole my camera. Despite not putting my camera directly in the sand, the camera was filled with it from the waves. Now the dials are difficult to turn because of the sand. I hear a crunch every time I spin the dial or open the door for the SD card or charger. The same day I took pictures using the custom shutter and the AUTO-FOCUS was trash. I have had issues with the auto-focus on this camera at times. This is the first point and shoot camera where I have used the manual focus before. I'm not sure why the autofocus sometimes fails me. In my beach pictures, the camera was set on the underwater - snapshot option. The lighting changed throughout the day due to it raining off and on and also the sun's regular rising and setting. The images were dramatically different from overexposed to underexposed. In low-light settings, I suggest WB Auto Keep Warm Color: OFF. I noticed the photos in low light can be very orange if you have WB Auto Keep Warm Color: On. The aperture is limited to 2.0-8.0, so don't expect anything fancy. The camera can do RAW but the quality of the RAW images are terrible. I was disappointed with the zoom feature, I thought maybe my camera zoom was stuck but it really doesn't zoom out very far (4x zoom). Camera manufacturers should consider remotes or remote capabilities for the camera. You can pair the camera to the phone to take images but I bought a camera so I don't have to use the phone. I'd like to put it on the selfie stick or tripod and use the remote to take a few quick snaps. I am grateful for and love the custom feature that allows me to set it to shoot after 4 seconds and then take 8 photos in succession. That reminds me, the BATTERY/SD card door is next to the tripod mount, so if you have to change the battery or quickly change the SD card, you have to remove the tripod. The TG-6 is touted as an impressive macro camera. It's great but it isn't magnificent. The camera tends to underexpose the images. That means if you don't use flash with a DIFFUSER, your images will need a higher ISO. In low light settings, you need to use flash, so you can use a low ISO. High ISO in this camera is extremely grainy. The flash without a diffuser is bright even when I have cut the flash down to 1/64. At the same time, it depends on what you are shooting. If it's a bug that does not have any metallic body parts like a butterfly, then it's not an issue. Shiny bugs need a diffuser. The LG-1 is used with the LED light, it is not waterproof, and it's too harsh for shiny creatures. FD-1 is waterproof, uses the flash, and softer which is better for non-reflective bugs. LG-1 is more of a focused light than a diffuser, FD-1 is a diffuser. The light can be adjusted in FD-1 because the flash can be reduced between 1/1.3 to 1/64. Focus stacking option in Macro is my favorite but you need to keep the camera very still. Since I don't always use my tripod, the default I use is Microscope. In all, aside from the macro photography, I feel I should have bought the go pro. I didn't know it existed until a month after I bought the camera. At the same time, I don't hate the camera, it just doesn't seem worth it for me. Note there is a steep learning curve to get the full benefit of the camera. PRO: Waterproof RAW Long-lasting battery Rugged Macro Procap NONCOMMITAL: Manual online External battery charger Image quality CON: Auto mode Auto-focus No lens cover Limited aperture Zoom No remote capability (outside of phone) Battery door located by the tripod mount Cost RAW photo quality Not good with sand Summary: Whether you should buy this camera depends on what you're buying it for and your pet peeves. The image quality depends on the lighting, your photo taking abilities, the scene or setting of the camera, and your knowledge of the camera. The more you learn the better the images (to an extent) because you will learn the camera's limitations. The cost of the camera is high considering it lacks some basic accessories. It does decent underwater and Macro scenes. Accessories I purchased: 2 LI-90B/92B batteries and charger 7 piece filter (don't buy) - I only like the ND filter FD-1 waterproof filter diffuser (uses flash) LG-1 Light guide (uses LED) Olympus CLA-T01 conversion lens adapter (has lens cover) Waterproof mini tripod Screen protectors (recommended) - Screen Protectors Compatible Olympus Tough TG-5, AFUNTA 2 Packs Anti-Scratch Tempered Glass Protective Films MC 40.5mm UV protection filter with a multi-resistant coat - love but not necessary

I;ll start with the bad... 1) No battery charger. I have to use the camera, and a USB cable, to charge the battery. I bought a spare battery with this, and now I can't use the camera while a battery is charging. Since I plan to use this hiking to replace my old Pentax waterproof camera it probably isn't a major issue, but it is disappointing. 2) No manual. It did come with a large sheet of paper covered with small writing in many languages. Not much there though beyond how to charge the battery and turn it on. In specific, I bought an LB-T01 accessory which tells me to check the manual for installation instructions. There are no such instructions. Most likely, this piece of paper isn't really the manual. The manual is likely available online only, which makes it useless for my purposes as the times I will need the manual are the times when I don't have internet. 3) It feels flimsy. My only comparison in this category is a 9 year and 2 day old Pentax waterproof, but that camera feels much more solid than this one. The doors on this one just don't seem solid enough and reliable enough to keep water out. The first thing I did when I bought that Pentax was drop it in a pot of water to photograph it laying there in the bottom, then I took a selfie out of the bowl through the water. I don't trust this one enough to do that. Almost everything in the menus were intuitive. The only problem I had was enabling raw image capture. I had to google that because it eluded me in the menus. Need more time with it to talk about all the good things in detail. UPDATE: I've had a chance to look over the pictures I took. Overall, it was really hit or miss for me. Any kind of low light or shadows was definitely a miss. This camera seems to do well in bright lights and not so well in anything less than bright lights. The quality is pretty good in bright lights, which is good. My previous waterproof camera, purchased a little over nine years ago, didn't really take good pictures in any circumstance. This one doesn't compare to my regular camera, but it does very well for how small and light it is. The lack of a manual and a battery charger are still serious limitations, but the camera is pretty simple once you learn a few of its idiosyncrasies, so the manual isn't needed once you've read it a time or two. I have a third party battery charger on the way, hopefully it works. The raw mode works well, which was most of the reason I bough this camera. Finding the raw mode was hard, but this is my first Olympus camera, so maybe it was where the Olympus people expect it to be. It only takes SD cards, which is miserable, but I already owned a couple because of my IR camera, so I can use them here as well. Overall, still happy.