Cherryflava

Review: Olympus Tough 3000

Posted on 28. Feb, 2011 by Jonathan Cherry.

It may look like a box of luxury cigarettes, but the Olympus Tough 3000 that we were sent to review is more at home in less urban surroundings.

You see unlike most point-and-shoot cameras on the market these days this one is designed to take pictures underwater, of the shark that is trying to use your leg as a tooth pick. And then is strong enough to be used as weapon against the beast as your attempt to flee from the scene of the snacking.

It is therefore, as you may have gathered, waterproof to a depth of 3m and can be thrown with force at anything hard that is less than 1.5m away. Which is great if you’re the type of person that doesn’t consider a Playstation an important life accessory.

Picture wise it takes nice enough snaps. There are loads of fancy programmable settings to goof around with, some more useful than others. We weren’t overly impressed with the battery life span, but it lasted long enough between charging to record the gist of what we were trying to take photographs of. It’s easy to use, doesn’t draw to much attention from security when your take pictures inside Cavendish Square and is light enough to carry around as you see fit.

Would we buy one?

The main attraction of this camera is the ‘tough’ bit of its name. If you want a mik-’n-drik that can withstand a trail run or you need something to take some snaps of your girlfriend learning to surf in a bikini then this is the camera for you. Performance wise it’s a pretty standard option, but if you’re looking for the camera version of that orange Nokia that everyone misses…this is your boy.

[thanks to Lina for the test model]