Fast continuous shooting, reliable autofocus and great battery life are just three of the most important factors. To my eye, Raw images converted at default settings are a little low in contrast, and could probably handle a bit more sharpening when viewing them at a pixel level.

Olympus Stylus Tough TG-4 Review | ePHOTOzine

The camera takes pictures at the focus distance that is secured by pressing the shutter button halfway down, and at slightly different points shifting the focus from the foreground to the background. The TOUGH TG4’s built-in flash has four modes – auto, red-eye reduction, fill-in and off and has a maximum range of 7.The lens shows similar performance at the 50mm setting (2,000 lines), but sharpness drops off when zoomed further. No, we did not intend for this camera to replace a more capable video camera, but it is surprising that it is so much worse than our five year old Sony DSC. Advanced shooting modes like Live Composite, Multiple Exposure and Live Time can be set with a simple operation. My review model was finished in black with red details and there’s also a red version which I think looks even better and has the advantage of being more visible should you drop it.

Olympus Tough TG-4 Review - Review 2015 - PCMag UK Olympus Tough TG-4 Review - Review 2015 - PCMag UK

For this clip I tested the TOUGH TG4’s continuous AF performance by zooming the lens in slightly and panning from the coffee cup on the table up to the bar and back again. In comparison to our old Sony DSC TX "tough" camera the image quality of the Olympus is poor, even with the big jump in megapixels.

As you can see, I’ve managed to recover plenty of highlight and shadow detail that wasn’t present in the original. If a good noise reduction filter were applied to the RAW files, we might get back to what the Oly JPEG engine gave us in the first place. Olympus' cool 'Live Composite mode', a pair of custom setting spots on the mode dial, and additional underwater modes are also new features.