Roberts Raw!

› posts tagged ‘tough 8000’

Fear No Water

hair-flipSometimes the possibility of getting wet is the last thing on your mind. I mean dead last, not even occurring to you, stop afterward with the dripping wet shell of a formerly valuable electronic device in your hand and a sinking ball of regret infesting your stomach. You know what I mean? Sometimes there are just more important things in life. Like bikini girls. OK, or waterfalls, sue me for being particular to bikini girls though.

The point is, and it’s a recurring one here on RAW, there are cameras for those of you who prefer to not stand on the sidelines. For those of you who live near large pools of water, or near a pint glass for that matter. For those who want to shoot in the rain, pool, beach, nearest waterfall, hurricane (not recommended, all the same) and so-on and so-on.

And, these cameras are less and less niche every year. We now have 14 of them (OK, some of them are just different colors, but I know there are over a half dozen good, reliable models that fear not the presence dihydrogen monoxide anymore). We might soon have a couple more if we get some things going we want to. It used to be solely Olympus’ game, but now we see other notables like, oh, Canon, say, and somewhere out there a waterproof Fuji, fleshing out the ranks.

So, this post is for you, makers of fearless cameras. You enhance our beach experiences, and the next time I encounter a young and attractive person flipping hairfuls of water, I shall not stand aside, timid, afraid for my camera, but shall rush in–indeed where fools dare not go. And all shall be good.

read more



“The Wonder of it All” or “Un-Color My World”

I sat down last week and uploaded images, then it got really busy. Really. The next time I got to work on this most impressive post it was almost 5:00 on Wednesday and I had only a minute to get back to it. Really busy, was there a race and 440,ooo extra people in town or what?!?

Anyway, the week before last I went to Florida on vacation and I took both of my Olympus cameras with me. The point and shoot SW1030 was on my hip the entire time I was not sleeping, the E520 and several lenses were brought out several times, but a DSLR is just not as easy to have on you all the time. Both cameras have their unique qualities. The SW1030 (and it’s newer brother the Tough 8000) is a little photo-tank and submarine and can go underwater as far as 33 feet and is still small enough to have on you all of the time. Then there is the interchangable lens DSLR series fron Olympus.color-wheel

My E-520 is a DSLR and takes interchangable lenses and external flashes. One of the features I used the most on vacation is its ability to shoot in B&W. I know, lots of cameras can shoot in B&W, but I don’t know of too many that have Red, Orange, Yellow and Green filter modes built into the software. Here is where Derek would give you a lesson on the old fashion B&W filters and how they affected film images. Suffice it to say that using color filters on B&W film causes the tones closest to the filters color to get lighter, and tones opposite of those colors (on the color wheel we all remember from grade school art class) To get darker). Example, Orange filters will make blue sky darker, green filters will make red items darker (and green ones lighter). There having said that here is a photo I shot using Orange Red and Yellow filters in the Fanning Springs National Park on the Suwannee River in Florida.

Left to Right: Orange filter, Red filter and Yellow filter.

Left to Right: Orange filter, Red filter and Yellow filter.

The differences are subtle but notice how the sky and leaves are much lighter in the yellow, and the darker sky and leaves in the Orange filter.

Now if you have one of those other brand DSLR’s that don’t have built in color filters (for B&W shooting) you can still purchase a screw on filter at you favorite all-purpose camera store like, say Roberts from your favorite sales person like…

Like Sean Connery said in Highlander, “Here endeth the lesson.” Go be happy and make beautiful images. That’s an order.



Tough Olympus Stylus Deals

If you are looking for a camera that is very rugged and can take pictures in the water, the Olympus digital camera linup is very impressive.  If you buy an Olympus Stylus Tough 6000 or 8000 from us, we will include 4 Kingston 512MB micro SD cards with the purchase.  The tough 8000 can go down to 30 feet, has 12MP and has a wide angle 3.6x zoom.  The perfect all-weather summertime point and shoot camera!



Tough Beauties

Oh boy! The new Olympus digital cameras are showing up. As you know the DSLR E-30 arrived over a week ago.  Today the first new point and shoot Olympus digital cameras hit. The TOUGH series cameras which are directly related to the 1030SW and 1050SW cameras are starting to show up. The flagship, The Tough 8000 is a nearly indestructible (under reasonable use) model that can go underwater down to 33 feet, can withstand 200 lbs of pressure, can survive a 6.6 ft. drop onto a solid surface and can operate in 14 degrees F.  It is also 12 mega pixel, which is higher than the 10.1 mega pixel camera it replaces, the wide angle zoom is great at 28-102mm 35mm equivalents.

Oly Tough 600 and 8000

This next generation also has what is known as the beauty setting. In the beauty setting you take a photo, then the camera runs a built in  program which removes wrinkles and applies a soft filter effect.  It works pretty well, and as I get older and more “distinguished” looking I can see a definite need for the beauty mode.

detail of mode dial

The other newby Tough camera is the 6000 series, available in cool colors it is a 10 mega pixel, also has a 28-102 mm range lens that can withstand a 5 ft. drop, goes 10 feet of underwater and works at -10 Celsius/14 degrees F. Both cameras use the xD memory card, but Olympus also includes a Micro SD card adapter so you can use Sandisk cards up to 8GB in the cameras.

Priced at  $279 for the 6000 and $ 369 for the 8000 series these cameras are cheaper than any similar featured camera and an underwater housing by a country mile! Beauty Baby.




Switch To Mobile Site