Olympus Tough TG2 Review

I have gone through a few different point and shoot cameras for kayak fishing.  Some have been pretty good, and some just eh.  The one that was pretty good was the Olympus Tough 8010.  I liked it but eventually the salt got to it.  So I decided to invest in another Olympus with the caveat that I needed to do a better job of rinsing the salt off more often and thoroughly.

I absolutely love my TG-2.  Without getting into all the super technical stuff, let me share what I think are some excellent features.

Obviously, the whole waterproof/shockproof thing is important for kayak fishing.  It's nice having full confidence that it can get bumped, dunked, and slimed with zero repercussion.  I did however add a float to the strap since it doesn't float.  

In comparison to my previous point and shoots, the TG-2 has a super fast start up time.  When you're on the water or in nature in general, sometimes that moment that you're trying to capture goes by very quickly.  So when I turned on my TG-2 and it was ready to go immediately, I was impressed.   It also has high speed sequential shooting up to 60 frames per second.

Shot on the TG2 by Joe Underwood

 
The picture quality is pretty good.  I'm not gonna lie, my Nikon DSLR is better in this department but the TG-2 definitely holds it's own. It also has really good 1080p full HD video and the 4 different underwater scene modes are pretty cool for those release shots, too.
 
The feature I like best is the amazing super macro setting.

There are several add-ons that I haven't used but might in the future.  The telephoto converter lens extends the optical zoom range and the wide-angle fisheye lens stretches the view (which could be really cool underwater). 

Overall, it's an excellent camera for kayak fishing and I highly recommend it.