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).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA 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.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It is particularly obvious on this image of a coaster.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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….