The year 2010 is all about rugged, tough cameras everywhere - it's the new thing this season. Generally, ruggedness is not a quality that sits easily with sleekness or high quality. The monster SLR's that they make for journalists and magazine photographers are usually pretty rugged, but they also weigh a ton and you'd need deep pockets to fit them in (pockets, figuratively and literally). This year's models of rugged cameras though have broken past those barriers; they have plenty of models that are rugged but also super-sleek. Let's start this tough camera review out with the new name in ruggedness, the Casio Exilim EX-G1.
I love the fact that you can say "crush proof" these days in the same breath as "digital". They said it for the new Olympus Tough range of cameras, and now Casio claims it (at least they have quite a tradition in this, what with their rugged GShock watches for mountain climbers that have impressed for a decade or more). This new Casio is fine with drops to concrete from 7 feet, it loves it at the bottom of your swimming pool 3 meters under the surface, you could throw it in the snow and leave it there overnight, and beach sand has nothing on this little bright red baby. And yet, this stainless steel and fiberglass camera has an outstanding 12 megapixel sensor, it is about three-quarters of an inch thick, and I can't get over the slick redness of the face of the camera. The LCD is made of reinforced glass to take the beating it expects you to give it, and it's the thinnest tough camera on the market. The one thing that kind of stands out as missing here, is the image stabilization technology - there is none. And the video is not high-def. Let's try a Lumix tough camera review next to see if they call on you for as many sacrifices.
It's the Lumix TS2 from Panasonic. It's so tough, they even file it under a special category on their website, called the Tough section. Panasonic has a heritage with toughness too - I just read an article about how a toughbook out in the real world with critical data on it, survived a 25 foot drop onto concrete at an airport, and still managed to not even turn off. To me, the TS2 is just special. To begin with, the sensor is a near-SLR-level 14 megapixel. It's perfectly light, the zoom extends to nearly 5x, and it is all about reinforced seals everywhere (the zoom doesn't extend out - it's all inside the slim body). The PS2 is an underwater camera - not just waterproof. It can take it to 10 m underwater, as opposed to just 3m with the Casio. I don't know if they've done anything to the colorful finish of the fascia, but after I dropped it five times on concrete from the level of my breast pocket, it wasn't even scratched.
If you are reading this camera review for an idea on which tough camera to buy, have I given you anything to pick one way or the other yet? If not, here you go - not only can the Lumix shoot high definition 720p video, it can do this deep underwater, and it has a dedicated Record button for it. What is more, the zoom is fully functional all through the time you capture your footage. If it were up to me, I would pick the Lumix. I love it for how they put video right up there with the still picture, and I love the thoughtfulness of the dedicated video record button. And to me, Lumix stands solidly behind the quality of its products any day.
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