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A good camera for the hills?

Re: A good camera for the hills?

Postby Border Reiver » Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:07 pm

My regular (fine weather) camera is a Canon G3x. Lovely camera that zooms in to 100x and lots of features, but....the slightest moisture or dampness and the inner lens fogs up and it takes ages to clear itself again. I also carry a old Olympus TG1 Tough, which takes excellent pics and withstands every form of rough treatment. It got covered in dried salt spray last week and I just washed it under a tap. Max 8x zoom but plenty of tricks for a pocketable camera and it's saved me a few times when other cameras got wet.
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Re: A good camera for the hills?

Postby madprof » Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:21 pm

WalkWithWallace wrote:The Sony RX100 range are definitely worth looking at, mark III onwards.

They're not hardy though, I put my camera away in bad weather and just use the phone.


I have found mine can survive a few spots. I keep it in a small freezer bag with a sheet of kitchen roll. I'm careful to wipe water off the lens casing before turning it off. It's been on all my winter hikes.

Also agree that Mk3 onwards is a must - I had a Mk2 and it was slow to take pictures and no viewfinder. I now have a Mk5A and it is superb although the greater zoom range of later models may be more appropriate for landscapes.

It is useful having a proper viewfinder and being able to crop and still get great quality like the attached image (which I just noticed has been shrunk so it can't be appreciated - boo!)
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Re: A good camera for the hills?

Postby IamAJMiller » Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:28 am

That's great, thanks for your advice, I've got some thinking to do!
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Re: A good camera for the hills?

Postby Giant Stoneater » Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:27 am

Pointless Parasite wrote:
IamAJMiller wrote:Thanks for your replies! I'm interested in the Olympus, looks like a tough old camera for the hills. I wonder if anyone could speak to the picture quality between that one and the others mentioned. Am I sacrificing image quality for toughness? I suppose ultimately I've become a bit of a fair-weather walker of late, so it's unlikely to get soaked. Don't want to make the mistake I made last time and get a waterproof camera, only to take worse photos in good weather. I appreciate everyone's help with this.


There are two answers to this. In RAW mode the pictures are very good, if a little flat (as would be expected given the lack of post-processing). For standard non-RAW mode (jpg) the photos are appallingly bad. I wondered if I'd accidently set the camera to shoot in 'rubbish old-school phone camera' mode but that doesn't seem to be the case. Currently I set to RAW only and then convert the photos to jpg at home. It's a bit time consuming but it works, plus I can log GPS tracks.

If you want some examples, all the photos in this report were taken with a TG6 in standard mode. The ones at the end are spoiled by smudges on the lens, which is another problem with this camera (no lens cover).
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=107004


You can get a lens cover for the TG6 which you attach and stays fixed to the camera and you just give it a twist to open or close though it is pricey.
https://shop.olympus.eu/en_GB/cameras/accessories/lb-t01-lens-barrier

Picture quality JPG is poor in certain conditions but am willing to sacrifice that for something that can withstand our weather having lost a few other devices to the weather.
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