Yesterday, I took delivery of the Olympus TG-4 compact camera. It is a waterproof, go anywhere, tough, point-and-shoot camera. I never expected the high quality I get from my Canon 5D mk III but I am shocked by just how bad this camera is. I think and hope it is just an problem with a single camera and I trust Amazon will replace it.
Here’s what I saw. I have something of a tradition of testing new camera on cats, and as we have no cats of our own, next door’s cat, Jessie, was my test subject. As I was taking the the images of Jessie, I noticed an odd colour patch in the centre of the image. Here seen on the back of Jessie’s head (she had had enough of posing by this stage).
Note the purple area centre of the image.
Thinking it was a strange reflection I took more photos of different subjects in the house. Each showing the same purple patch.
It is particularly obvious on this image of a coaster.
It appears to mainly visible is low light/high ISO photography, and is more obvious over a dark subject. Cleaning the lens has made no difference.
While trying to determine the cause of this colour patch, I discovered the second problem. This so-called ‘dust-proof’ camera, has dust on the sensor.
As can be seen from these two additional images the dust spot is in the same place each time. As with any ‘dust on the sensor’ it is only really visibile of a plain background and with small apertures f/16 or smaller.
I do not know whether the two problems are related or not. I don’t know whether the sensor dust is from the manufacturing process or post manufacturing. In either case it is not good news. If it occurred at manufacture then the manufacturing process is potentially flawed. If it is post manufacture then the quality of the dust and water sealing is questionable.
So it’s now over to Amazon for a returns number….
I have the same purple spot issue and am not sure whether to get a replacement. Did you get a new camera and did that resolve the issue?
I ended up just asking for a refund, and buying a go pro for water based photo/video and a Panasonic LF1 as a general purpose compact.
Thanks. Other than this issue I do quite like this camera so think I’ll try for a replacement. Perhaps it was a bad batch – my problematic one is the black model, how about yours? Maybe I’ll have better luck with the red one.
That is interesting… Mine was the red model. So perhaps an inherent problem or a bad batch of sensors? Good luck with the replacement. Let me know how you get on.
Hi, I have a black TG4 with the same problem. Did you resolve your issue?
I’ve just taken delivery of black TG-4 and I’m seeing the same purple patch.
Has anyone resolved this issue. Is it a faulty batch of cameras?