Olympus TG4 or TG5 for Snorkeling?
by Ruth
(San Francisco)
Cuttlefish, taken with my Olympus TG4
Giant Clam, with TG4
Clown Anemone Fish, with TG4
What advantages does the Olympus TG5 have over the TG4, my current model, for snorkeling?
I will be on a snorkeling liveaboard in the Maldives in March and have been fence sitting on staying with what I have or springing for the TG5.
A few issues I had with the Olympus TG4 snorkeling on a 2016 Raja Ampat trip were:
1. The LCD screen fogged up often and I was shooting blind at times.
2. It was easy to accidentally switch the knob controlling the underwater scene to a different setting. I realize this is mostly due to operator error, nevertheless it seemed to be quite sensitive.
3. Backscatter seemed really pronounced. This artifact was more present than in previous snorkeling trips I've taken - perhaps because Raja Ampat has such amazingly healthy reefs, thus more small particles in the water to bounce back light. My trip leader advised me to make sure the flash was off - perhaps it wasn't initially but there still seemed to be some backscatter with flash off.
Thanks for any and all advice.