Olympus Stylus TOUGH-8000 Digital Camera Review

Olympus Stylus TOUGH-8000

Digital Camera Review

Jan 10, 2009 - By Tim Barribeau
The Stylus Tough-8000 from Olympus is the company's latest ruggedized camera, a follow-up to the 1030SW and 1050SW. It can survive 33 feet of water, 14°F cold and 220 lbs of pressure. We spent some hands-on time with it at the Consumer Electronics Show, and our first impressions follow. The Tough-8000 will be available in February for $399.99, with a 12-megapixel sensor and 3.6x zoom.
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The Olympus Tough-8000 definitely lives up to its name, as it's encased in a hard layer of metal that makes it all but impervious to the elements. It looks and feels very durable, and all the buttons seem to be appropriately resilient, if a little small for our tastes.

Front
As you can see from the photo below, the front of the camera is built to last, with metal plates attached to the body with rivets. The lens is placed in the upper right corner of the body, which makes it very easy to block with your finger.  


All those rivets speak for its toughness.

Back
In keeping with the overall ruggedness of the camera, the buttons and dials are all incredibly tough, though definitely on the small side. On this area of the camera, you have zoom controls at the top, then the mode dial, a four-way pad (with the directional keys serving double duty for the commonly used features of exposure compensation, macro, flash and timer). There are also four diagonal buttons. Top left is Menu, top right is Playback, bottom left is Display, and bottom right is OR (Olympus Recommends, which takes you to a few otherwise difficult-to-access options).


The buttons are small but sturdy.

Sides
The sides are relatively barren. The left side has only the microphone, and the right has the large lanyard loop, speaker and the heavily reinforced port access.

The left and right sides.

Top
The top has two buttons, the rectangular shutter control, and the small, circular power button.

The aren't many controls on the top

Bottom
The bottom is where you'll find the centrally placed tripod mount, and the cover for battery and memory card.


Battery and memory card are well protected

 
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