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Very good camera for beginner underwater photographers.

Started Aug 10, 2018 | User reviews
randomunderwaterphotographer New Member • Posts: 1
Very good camera for beginner underwater photographers.
1

As a beginner underwater photographer I found this camera incredibly useful. I typically will use it with it's housing since I go past 15 metres a lot and it is great. It is very easy to use and takes very good photos under the water even when I was stupid and didn't put it in underwater mode.  In my experience both the housing and camera itself are sturdy as the housing has survived being dropped on a boat deck and being attacked by a very determined blue groper (a 1.2 metre long fish). The camera itself survived getting dropped onto a coral reef 8 metres below me.

The only cons in my opinion of the camera are it's performance in low light and dirty water and the way the flash works. Even when shooting in raw some photos in low light look grainy. The same goes for poor visibility. The flash settings can be troublesome as when set on auto it will go off all the time in my experience, but this has never been a problem for me as the camera takes very good pictures without flash on.

All in all a very good beginner camera and worth buying.

This is one of the first ever images I took with my camera and it wasn't even in underwater mode.

Olympus Tough TG-5
12 megapixels • 3 screen • 25 – 100 mm (4×)
Announced: May 17, 2017
randomunderwaterphotographer's score
4.5
Average community score
3.4
bad for good for
Kids / pets
great
Action / sports
excellent
Landscapes / scenery
excellent
Portraits
excellent
Low light (without flash)
mediocre
Flash photography (social)
acceptable
Studio / still life
unrated
= community average
T R R Forum Member • Posts: 94
Re: Very good camera for beginner underwater photographers.

I wrote some notes about underwater mode (what they do and when to use each) here:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4300749#forum-post-61387099

In short you don't need to use underwater mode as you can replicate all of it with a white balance setting and manually setting some other things, but I'd recommend it as it can make it easier.  The "underwater snapshot" is not much more than just a white balance setting but the "underwater wide" mode turns off autofocus and tries to get everything beyond a few feet in focus, this can be useful in deeper water (than just snorkeling).

 T R R's gear list:T R R's gear list
Olympus TG-5 Olympus PEN E-P2 Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH Panasonic Lumix G Vario 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II ASPH Mega OIS
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