Techie
12:04 PM | Thursday | 11 March 2010

The Olympus mju Tough 8000, with all its shooting modes, the option to go panoramic, its 3.6x zoom, and all its proofing action (dust-, freeze-, water-) has all bases covered save for one: You take care of taking good photographs. But that's actually the hard part.

The Olympus mju Tough 8000 is distracting in all the beautiful ways possible. For one, its Hyper Crystal LCD is awesome. Colors bounce like giddy atoms of love, peace, and happiness. Which can be misleading because your photos may look like the rainbow on screen but on print (or viewed from your PC monitor), they're rather regular.

Next, the one-too-many shooting modes. With 19 modes to choose from, including 4 underwater options, we reckon the camera is geared toward the outdoorsy weekend warrior. There's night landscape, and then there's night portrait. Theoretically, it's very impressive, but in reality, how many will really have the time to change modes, when a second is all it takes for a picture-perfect moment to be over?

Another theoretically sound feature: Tap Control Menu. Tap the camera's right side, and you have control of its flash. Tap the left, and you have the macro. Tap the screen, and you can preview photos. Tap the... you get the drift. It's cute, yes? But awfully confusing, too. We reckon it will take some getting used to, and when you've acquainted yourself with it, then it's convenient through and through.

As we mentioned earlier, the mju Tough 8000 has some nice-proofing going for it: It's dust-proof, freeze-proof to negative 10 degrees Celsius (for next time you go to Lake Tahoe or Baguio), waterproof to 10m, crush-proof to 100kg, and drop-/shock-proof to 2m. We actually dropped the camera one time we went drinking, and lo and behold, it outlasted us that night!

Which leads us to battery life. In the week that we've taken the camera for a spin, we only had to charge it once. And we've yet to touch the charger again. Very convenient, especially for quick weekend trips.

So the tricky part is the actual taking of photographs. Because the camera entices thrill-seekers and go-getters, we reckon you'll take it as near your subject as possible. Go ahead, buddy, that's the way to roll. Because if you rely on its zoom, well, let's put it this way: Its 3.6x zoom is great for legit distances. When you just want to take a super close-up, it gets weird and blurry. Not a very good macro shooter.

Panorama Mode

For general outdoor use, this is a great camera to use. For the creative genius inside you, however, there are better choices.

Click here to see the Olympus mju Tough 8000 in the Buyer's Guide.