Six Outdoorkameras in the test

The devices in the test


Outdoorkameras: The test gallery


The beach is pretty much the last place you like your SLR. Water and sand can cause serious damage to equipment. If you want to avoid this, pack the SLR into a hermetically sealed plastic box or take a compact camera designed for the Outddor application instead.


Picture gallery


These cameras, also known as Outdoorkameras, are protected by special seals on the housing against all sorts of unburies. The closed construction means that no lens parts can be moved in and out, so the complete zoom range must be realized by moving the lenses or lens groups internally. This sets clear limits for the zoom.


Conclusion


Nearly all outdo cameras are therefore starting with a 4x zoom or 5x zoom. Of our test candidates the Olympus TG2 offers the smallest focal range with 25-100 mm (KB), but it has the largest angle of view.


Small controls are of course prohibited for operation under water or with gloves. Outdoorkameras are therefore designed for the easiest possible photographing in all living situations and come with some special settings.


Many outdo cameras are equipped with GPS and compass. These measuring instruments provide additional information for each photo which you can use during the post processing on the computer. A great advantage of the outdo camera, which is hardly talked about: they are not prone to fouling by lint and dust.


How to find the right digital camera


While in other compact cameras the camera is constantly getting dirty and moving, the hermetically sealed outdoctor cameras are immune to the camera lens, which then appears in the form of black spots on the images.

In our test, we tested six outdo cameras: Canon Powershot D20, Nikon Coolpix AW110, Olympus Stylus TG-2, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT5, Pentax WG-10 and Sony Cybershot DSC-TX30. Here are the results


All six outdo cameras tested are not only indestructible, but also offer an appealing image quality, at least in the entrance sensitivity and in the wide angle. In the densely packed field, the Panasonic FT-5 ultimately has the nose ahead and gets the buying tip outdoor. The Pentax WG-10 is priced at 150 euros cheaper than the competitors.


Download: Test results