Olympus-Fuji Waterproof camera comparison

[OldMacs4Me]

So been testing my new Olympus Tough TG-6 camera, and will be comparing it to the older Fuji XP90. Bought the XP90 in 2016, at that time the Olympus version was the TG-3. The sad truth is that neither camera has evolved optically in the interim. I doubt that the images from the TG-6 are any better than from the TG-3 and I'm certain that Fuji's current XP140 will not do any better than my old XP90.

Reviews suggest that image quality from the Olympus is superior to the Fuji. Since most aspects can be manipulated post image, what I am comparing is detail captured. Right out my back door I have a perfect target, a distant hillside of coniferous trees. Can't think of anything harder for a CMOS sensor to capture than that.

The Fuji uses a 16MP BSI-CMOS 4 1/2.33" sensor, and the Oly a 12MP 1/2.33" CMOS sensor. You would think that gives the Fuji the edge, however the best Fuji image is a fine level JPEG compression. The Oly has both RAW and super fine level JPEG compression. With this image I had the Oly at 18mm, while the Fuji was at 18.1mm focal length, I then interpolated the Oly image up to 16MP. The composite below shows the image from the Fuji, Oly RAW and Oly SFJPEG. I zoomed in all images to 100% resolution and then took the same area from the center of each image. Pretty much zero tweaking. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

NOTE: To view at full resolution be sure to click on the image.

Both cameras were set to an ISO of 200, the Fuji forces higher ISO as its only version of anti-shake, so I disabled anti-shake in the Olympus to make it as fair of a comparison as possible. To give some idea of difference in the compression levels, the Fuji JPEG was 7.4MB The Oly was 6.8MB, which would be ~9MBs for a 16MP image.

 

[cSalmon]

Wow you have a nice backyard! Would love to get a pocketable waterproof but those sensor sizes are ridiculous. They may give an acceptable image durning the bright day they fall off a cliff as the light level goes down wether night or just activities such as snorkeling, caving or just hiking in that dense forest. I will never understand why companies come out with half the cr@p they force on consumers then wonder why we quit biting - I guess some very rich yet stupid execs

Long time ago I had a pocketable Oly a bit fatter than the TG-6 very close other than that. It took 35mm film so they can make a small camera lens combo that can cover full frame.

You should throw some images from a real camera in there so we have a reference

 

[OldMacs4Me]

You should throw some images from a real camera in there so we have a reference

Unfortunately I did not think to grab the Lumix, so no exact comparisons at the same time and with the same lighting. But I can assure you images of this subject are a lot crisper with the little ZS 200. The Canon EOS 4 I am borrowing is marginally but not significantly better than the Lumix but it is at least 10 years older. OTOH neither is water or shock proof and the Canon not only won't tuck into the pocket of my life preserver, but needs a tote bag to lug around.

As I said this is about as tough of a detail test as one can come up with. Typically my final image size would be not 16MP but maybe 3MP or 5 MP tops and would look quite good. Generally I would expect an excellent 8x10 print from either camera, and with some subjects a print as big as 12x16 is quite possible.

That said I was truly hoping that someone would have released a WP camera with a 1" sensor, by now. A 9-36mm lens could still be reasonably compact if not quite as thin as either of these cameras.

The lack of evolution in this niche market is absolutely appalling. If one can overlook things like start-up time, shutter lag, higher ISO capabilities, and burst shooting; my first Olympus WP (from 2010) with the CCD sensor took better images than either of these.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Unfortunately I did not think to grab the Lumix, so no exact comparisons at the same time and with the same lighting. But I can assure you images of this subject are a lot crisper with the little ZS 200. The Canon EOS 4 I am borrowing is marginally but not significantly better than the Lumix but it is at least 10 years older. OTOH neither is water or shock proof and the Canon not only won't tuck into the pocket of my life preserver, but needs a tote bag to lug around.

As I said this is about as tough of a detail test as one can come up with. Typically my final image size would be not 16MP but maybe 3MP or 5 MP tops and would look quite good. Generally I would expect an excellent 8x10 print from either camera, and with some subjects a print as big as 12x16 is quite possible.

That said I was truly hoping that someone would have released a WP camera with a 1" sensor, by now. A 9-36mm lens could still be reasonably compact if not quite as thin as either of these cameras.

The lack of evolution in this niche market is absolutely appalling. If one can overlook things like start-up time, shutter lag, higher ISO capabilities, and burst shooting; my first Olympus WP (from 2010) with the CCD sensor took better images than either of these.

OMD/Olympus weather sealing is fantastic, even on their ILCs. You can dump water on them. I think that’s why you aren’t seeing more activity in this space, because you can get waterproof in a camera system (where they can make more money selling lenses and bodies and such).

 

[mollyc]

Thanks for sharing your results. 🙂 I'm sure it will help someone out there!

 

[Clix Pix]

Unfortunately I did not think to grab the Lumix, so no exact comparisons at the same time and with the same lighting. But I can assure you images of this subject are a lot crisper with the little ZS 200. The Canon EOS 4 I am borrowing is marginally but not significantly better than the Lumix but it is at least 10 years older. OTOH neither is water or shock proof and the Canon not only won't tuck into the pocket of my life preserver, but needs a tote bag to lug around.

As I said this is about as tough of a detail test as one can come up with. Typically my final image size would be not 16MP but maybe 3MP or 5 MP tops and would look quite good. Generally I would expect an excellent 8x10 print from either camera, and with some subjects a print as big as 12x16 is quite possible.

That said I was truly hoping that someone would have released a WP camera with a 1" sensor, by now. A 9-36mm lens could still be reasonably compact if not quite as thin as either of these cameras.

The lack of evolution in this niche market is absolutely appalling. If one can overlook things like start-up time, shutter lag, higher ISO capabilities, and burst shooting; my first Olympus WP (from 2010) with the CCD sensor took better images than either of these.

I think some camera brands offer an accessory casing/enclosure to make their serious cameras waterproof or they refer the inquiry to third-party sources. Those people who dive underwater to serious depths need to have serious photo equipment plus guaranteed serious protection of that gear! Unfortunately most of that additional protective casing comes at a cost.

For the P&S going-on-vacation crowd, I know Sony has -- or used to offer -- a cute, tiny little P&S which was waterproof and had a tiny little 1/2.3 inch sensor which could produce 18MP. I think it used mini-SD cards, too, rather than full-sized SD cards. The lens was 10mm and had a 33x zoom or some such zoom range, for what that was worth. Other manufacturers also offer (or did) similar cameras. For people going on a beach vacation who just want(ed) to point-and-shoot snapshots of the family on the sand or in the water, this is probably ideal....

In the arena of 1" sensors, Sony and apparently other manufacturers have apparently disregarded this -- waterproof compact/P&S cameras with a 1" sensor -- as a potential target market, even though they have released other cameras with the 1" sensor..... It may be a matter of technology and simply for specific reasons not able to produce this at all or they have decided that the target market for such is so limited that they just aren't going to bother.

One would think that the camera manufacturers would realize that there are people who like to go out hiking or biking in forested or remote areas, who like to get into a canoe or kayak and go out on the water with their gear and who don't want to risk damaging very expensive camera bodies and lenses, and who also would appreciate something lightweight and comfortably small with the ability to control how their images are shot -- which fits into a pocket and which still, yes, produces really nice results -- not to mention that it isn't going to immediately become history if dropped into the water or onto hard concrete or rocks......

 

[OldMacs4Me]

OMD/Olympus weather sealing is fantastic, even on their ILCs. You can dump water on them. I think that’s why you aren’t seeing more activity in this space, because you can get waterproof in a camera system (where they can make more money selling lenses and bodies and such).

If you would feel comfortable tucking that camera in the small pocket of a life vest and occasionally swimming a stretch of rapids with it tucked there, I will happily reconsider as I would love a bigger sensor Waterproof camera. In the meantime these little guys do what exactly I ask of them which is being a go everywhere camera which weighs about 250gms and will stand up to lots of abuse including hanging out unprotected in various pockets.

FWIW both cameras are waterproof to 15M or 50' without external casings. About the deepest I have taken the Fuji is 10 feet and that was entirely unintentional, it just happened to be there at the time.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

So a bit more of a difference between the cameras that show in the two images that I used to kick this off.
If we look back at slide films; Kodachrome gave the best color reproduction, and by far the finest grain. However Kodachrome was slow, early generations ASA 25, later on ASA 32 and ASA 64. It was also difficult to process with only a handful of high volume labs running the process. A pretty good description here:

https://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/service/Zmanuals/z50_03.pdf

Ektachrome (and Fujichrome) films were certainly faster, they could also be processed locally with fast turnaround. Since most print operations required transparencies for color separation E6 films were the film of choice of most pros. However there is a definite problem with E6 where the various color layers are at least a bit sensitive to colors other than their own. To compensate the white balance of E6 films is somewhat balanced towards the cyan or perhaps a bit to the green side of cyan.

Fuji has chosen to carry this bias over into their digital cameras, whereas Olympus tries for a neutral balance. Shows up pretty clearly in the uncropped version of the images I posted earlier. To me this is not a huge deal as I tend to tweak the color to my liking regardless of the camera I am shooting. First image is from the Fuji XP90, second from the Olympus. In this case I did attempt to match density but did not alter color balance.

 

[cSalmon]

OMD/Olympus weather sealing is fantastic, even on their ILCs. You can dump water on them. I think that’s why you aren’t seeing more activity in this space, because you can get waterproof in a camera system (where they can make more money selling lenses and bodies and such).

I disagree with this internet wives tale. I have researched this question ad nauseam wether Olympus or Pentax and while the seals may be better than some, for every YouTube shower video there is another case of an unexpected splash destroying the same camera. And the companies Never stand behind water damage because they use a stupid term like "weather" sealed. A camera that works fine on a sunny day is weather sealed as well, the term has No actual meaning. Yes I have used pro 35mm canon cameras in all out downpours covering events but that does not compare to 3 three minutes in a swimming pool or a day on the river.

 

[cSalmon]

I do have the sony rx100 with a 1" sensor the housing is just too big to have on a lifejacket plus too fragile for most above the water activities like kayak or paddle boarding.

I really don't know what your testing can prove until you push the lighting conditions. Have you tried looking at the detail when the subject is lit from the back or extremely flat? How about when it's much later in the evening how does the detail hold up on the extremes when noise starts to overtake? Isn't detail as much about the lighting and quality of light entering the lens as it is about sensor?

Like you I literally can not believe there has never been a decent "waterproof" IPX-8 or 9 camera made - 20+yrs since digital photography became real for most.

I do look forward to seeing you push your testing should be interesting

edited: to remove all the verbose

 

[OldMacs4Me]

So a visual comparison. cameras are almost the same size with the Olympus being about 3mm longer, the Fuji being 5mm taller and the Oly being 4mm thicker. The Oly weighs 254gms, the Fuji is 207gms.
NOTE: The Oly has a bayonet mount which allows for filters, tele-extender, or super wide angle attachment.
ALSO NOTE: The Oly also has a mode dial, whereas the Fuji requires a menu dive to change modes. This dial is not really a good thing as it means one more thing that can be accidentally bumped when working the camera with one hand.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

A quick discussion of the lenses. WP camera lenses have a unique build in that the front element is fixed and the internal elements move to achieve zoom and focus. This is how they achieve such a good waterseal. Also explains the rather limited zoom range.

The Oly lens is 4.5-18mm(25-100mm equivalent). Maximum aperture is ƒ2 to ƒ4.9 depending on focal length.
The Fuji is 5-25mm (28mm-140mm equivalent). Maximum Aperture is ƒ3.9 to ƒ4.9 depending on focal length.

So at the widest angle the Oly has almost a 2 stop speed advantage over the Fuji but at 18mm (100mm eq)both are an identical ƒ4.9.

The Fuji has a strange quirk that I have seen in no other lens. It has excellent depth of field in front of the point of focus but very little behind. So with landscape shots that don't have a lot of close in foreground it's better to focus further away than with other cameras. Most obvious in the wide angle range, but till somewhat true at the telephoto end.

Because the lenses are fairly small and very short, there is not a huge range between minimum and maximum aperture. These are not cameras you would choose for blurring everything but the subject.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

This is my third WP camera dating back to 2010. Water droplets or spots on the lens can be a major irritant, when the camera is used on or in the water rather than under water.

Earlier I talked about the bayonet mount on the Oly. Purchased an aftermarket spring loaded lens cover and finally tested it on a river. Turn right to open, left to close, zero vignetting. Gonna give it a slightly mixed review. It did keep the lens dry despite numerous splashes to the life vest, but the cold water made it really stiff to open. A bonus is it provides protection for the face of the lens when the camera is otherwise taking a bit of abuse.

The real test has yet to happen. That will come when camera and I are totally immersed.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Both of these cameras offer good close-up abilities. Moreover they do it without having to use the wide angle of the lens.

Both require switching to close-up focusing. With the Fuji this involves pressing the left side of the joystick then selecting 'close-up'. The Oly requires pressing OK, finding the focus selctor, then selecting 'close-up' with the joy stick. The Fuji reverts to normal auto focus when the camera is turned off. The Oly retains its setting. The Oly offers both auto and manual close-up focusing. Manual focusing will not get in as close. I used the auto for this comparison.

With the Fuji getting in to the closest focus point is a bit of an art. With this shot to get in as close as possible I started at a point showing the entire flower and some background as well, pressing the shutter halfway to get a focus then moving in a shade closer and refocusing. It took about half a dozen baby steps to get in as close as possible. I was working at the 13mm point on the 5-25mm zoom, Aperture was wide open at ƒ-3.9, shutter came in at 1/180, ISO was manually set to 800. If you look at the image at full resolution you will see a bit of noise but not objectionable. That said I prefer using an ISO of 400 or slower with this camera.

With the Oly I used the maximum 18mm focal length. Aperture was wide open at ƒ-4.9, shutter was 1/100, ISO manually set to 1600. The auto focus grabbed at once and I continued to immediately release the shutter, as it was hand held and maintaining exact distance for any amount of time impossible. The Oly can go in even a smidge closer provided the camera does not get in the way of lighting. Again a bit of noise but not objectionable.

First image is from the Fuji, second from the Olympus. Entire flower is 3" or 75mm in diameter. Entire center is 5/8" or 15mm in diameter. Vertical portion of Fuji image is about 40mm or a bit more than 1.5". Vertical portion of Oly image covers less than 12mm (1/2)" At it's closet the Oly focuses down to .375"x.5" or about 9x12mm. This is only if the lens is zoomed all the way into FL=18mm. At FL=4.5mm, the coverage is not nearly as good.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Gate locks may seem unimportant but that is definitely not the case with Waterproof cameras. Leaving the door ajar could have fatal results, at least for the camera.

Fuji uses a double action lock. Push the spring loaded center button while turning the knob left to open. Locking is automatic when you turn right to close.

The Oly uses a pair of fingernail slides. One to lock and unlock and a second to open or close.
NOTE: It would be difficult to unintentionally open the gate, even should one forget to lock it.

Oly uses a second double slider gate to access HDMI and USB ports. Fuji just has a single gate for everything.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

A bit of an update. Was capturing a few pics at an informal Limbo contest this past weekend. Thought about shooting continuous but I was getting what I wanted with single shots. Wow! Shutter lag times have greatly improved since the days of CCD sensors.

Anyways I see the Fuji is still 10, 5 or 2FPS with a maximum of 9 shots per burst. Setting it up for burst is via the bottom left button on the camera back. However changing the Frame rate requires a menu dive.

The Oly has 20 or 10FPS. Maximum 14 shots per burst if shooting RAW, or RAW and JPEG. True continuous when shooting JPEG only. Continuous shooting or timer are both set up by pressing the bottom of the joy stick, Frame rate selected from there as well.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

An image from the Oly TG-6, taken at about 8;30 this past Sunday evening. While sun had not officially set there was cloud cover and the sun had dipped behind a nearby mountain. ISO was set manually to 1250. FL=18mm. SS=1/125. Had accidentally set camera to aperture priority, so ƒ-6.4 instead of a wide open ƒ-4.9. I worked from the JPEG and did resizing, sharpening, plus some color balance and density correction in Preview V5.0.3.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

So a very short discussion on a topic of which I am woefully and willingly ignorant. That is Movie capabilities.
Latest version of the Fuji will shoot 4k but only at 15fps. Oly will shoot 4k at 30fps.

Both will shoot 1080 at 60 or 30FPS. However latest Fuji will also shoot at 24FPS, which I suspect would be useful to those showing their movies on TVs in areas which use 50HZ AC power. 24 FPS has no real advantage in North America where our AC is 60hz.

Both cameras will zoom in or out while shooting but neither gives you any control over the speed of zoom.

Both cameras have a separate orange button that you push once to start recording and a second time to stop. The Oly has a separate movie mode, but will happily record movies in other modes as well.

Realistically if movies on a WP camera are your main interest, definitely look into the various Go-Pro offerings.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

With an occasional exception I don't use these cameras underwater. That said this is one area where the fast wideangle (ƒ-2) of the Oly is a big advantage. At the widest angle this camera has a 2-stop advantage over the Fuji, and you gain at least another half stop from the Oly's superior handling of higher ISOs. Even at the normal FL of 9mm the Oly maintains a 1-stop advantage plus whatever else can be eeked out at the high end of the ISO range.

Other than that I will defer to someone who uses this camera in an underwater setting:

Olympus TG-6 Review: The Easiest Underwater Compact Camera - Underwater Photography - Backscatter

We love the Olympus TG-6 for its extremely simple operation, outstanding macro ability, and the great image quality produced in both photo and video. It’s our pick for the Best All-Around Underwater Compact Camera in 2019, and it’s an ideal camera choice for not only beginners but also SLR...

www.backscatter.com

One quote from that review that ties into my post on close-up abilities:

The most unique feature of the Olympus TG-6 is its ability to capture the tiniest of critters without a macro accessory lens. The subject can be touching the lens and the Olympus TG-6 will still obtain focus easily, allowing you to get super close to extremely small subjects and capture them in sharp detail. No other camera can focus as close as the Olympus TG-6 can, even when using powerful (and expensive) accessory macro lenses.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

So time to wrap this up. These are definitely niche cameras, intended mainly for scuba diving but able to handle depths down to 50 feet. They are also the perfect choice for on the river or lake or whenever one needs a supercompact go anywhere camera that will stand up to a fair bit of abuse.

In terms of ease of use and best range of focal lengths the Fuji has a clear edge. Very seldom does one need to do a menu dive before shooting. The additional length at the telephoto end (140 vs 100) outweighs the slight difference at the wide angle portion (28vs25) of the lens. Works best using an EBV of -0.3 or -0.7. Expect to do some post image color correction unless you like the slight cyan color bias.

Other than that the Oly definitely comes out on top. The super macro abilities, better detail capture thanks to RAW or super fine level JPEGs, the ability to accept filters, continuous shooting at 20fps, and better performance at higher ISOs combine to give it the decided edge. Again best results are with a negative exposure bias, although I had decent success shooting RAW without correction. Colors for the most part require very little manipulation post image.

Back in 2016 the Fuji cost about $250 and the OLY $500. Both cameras have seen prices go up with no matching improvements on the performance end, but the Fuji has jumped a lot more. The Fuji now weighs in at $500 while the Oly is $650. By over inflating the price Fuji has largely eliminated its biggest competitive advantage. All prices are in Canadian dollars, at the time I was shopping.

The Oly also has the edge in bells and whistles, with doodads like GPS, compass, thermometer, and altimeter all built in. I don't really use those but I do use the tip and tilt levels. The histogram makes it easy to spot blown highlights, adjust ebv and reshoot as needed.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

And finally things I would like to see.

Neither camera has a preferred shutter setting. There are workarounds, but at this price bracket that should be written into the software.

The Fuji does do HDR, but to me the ability to do an exposure bracket set with one press of the shutter would be far more useful. That way, if the camera falls short of recording the entire dynamic range in a single frame, I can build an HDR image back at home.

I've read a bunch of reviews, which would like to see a flip back. I can see the reasoning but suspect it would be at the expense of durability.

Mostly I would like to see just one waterproof camera, take the leap to the 1 inch or micro 4/3rds sensor size. That said I wonder if the Oly would be able to maintain that incredible close-up ability with a larger sensor?