Olympus µ TOUGH-3000 review

Tougher than tough and waterproof, too

If there’s one problem with taking your compact camera on holiday, it’s the prospect of sand and water coming near your expensive gadget. The [mju:] Tough-3000 is set to counter such peril. The camera is rated waterproof to a depth of 3m thanks to covering the controls with a plastic overlay, sealing the battery/memory card compartment with rubber and ensuring the lens stays firmly inside the body. That isn’t to say there’s no optical zoom, but it’s no real surprise given this physical limitation that it’s just 3.6x from a 28mm start point. Also, if you are intending to actually photograph underwater then perhaps the Tough-8000 would be better, as it’s rated to 10m rather than the 3m here.

Realising that fewer controls make sense in a grubby environment, the functionality of the 3000 is also stripped down to basics. You won’t be fiddling around looking for manual program modes, as it’s a choice of which automatic mode to use. The standard is Program, which allows for plenty for adjustments, while iAuto is completely automatic. In between there’s Magic mode, which performs various gimmicky post- production effects that are better left to the computer, Panorama mode for stitching images, Beauty which is a portrait enhancement mode and lastly 19 scene modes. Beauty mode is notable for softening the background and lightening the face, though it’s quite subtle. Handling the camera isn’t great because the controls are fiddly to start with and this is compounded by the waterproofing.

Most of the fun is to be had in Program mode, because here macro, super macro, white balance, ISO and exposure compensation can be altered. The Macro mode is nothing to write home about at 10cm, but the Super Macro mode does get closer to the action. The exposure compensation is going to get a lot of use however, as the metering really doesn’t care about keeping detail in the sky at all. It’s entirely orientated to the ground/people, but the latitude doesn’t appear great either, with what should be straightforward shots requiring lots of adjustment to successfully capture. There are other performance issues for this 12MP compact. There’s face recognition of course, and this works reasonably well but isn’t infallible. When it comes to fast shooting though, the 3000 managed a pathetic three shots in a ten-second test. Focusing is okay in the first place, but tracking anything is impossible and combined with the burst rate, you aren’t going to capture much action. There is better capture rate if you drop the resolution down to 3MP, but why would you want to? The other area of disappointment is the flash. Expectations for flash on compacts is never high, but this is pretty weak.

The camera can take a few knocks and does look nice – though the burgundy and shocking pink version is perhaps a little lurid for some. Menu access is simple, given the reservations about actually using the controls to access them. If you do want to stick the camera underwater then there’s a specific mode for that, as trying to focus would be a waste of time. The Water mode uses a fixed aperture and focus distance to get things sharp enough. It’s good to see some thinking has gone into the fact that you might fill up your memory card while on the beach and be reticent to change it. Enter the 1GB internal memory, and even though only 600MB of this is usable, it’s still a handy backup.

There’s an impressively low ISO rating of 64 to start with, but even on this detail in shadow areas is limited. When the rating is pushed up it rapidly gets noisier and detail disappears, so that by the time it hits ISO 1600 the effect is noisy and a blotchy painting. There’s no ISO 3200, which is surprising.

The Tough-3000 flatters to deceive. It’s fine if you want something for the beach or taking pics of the kids in camera-threatening environments, but otherwise it’s quite limited.