Better With Bacon-New Camera Hike-Olympus TG4

B

bearthedog

Joined
May 17, 2006
Messages
4,290
My usual point and shoot (P&S) camera finally died and it was time to get a new one. Jeff Randall emailed me about the Olympus TG-3 a few months back. After trying it out at the Blade show I liked it enough to get one when my P&S died. The newer version is the Olympus TG-4 and is only slightly different than the TG-3. This one shoots in RAW.
This is one of the toughest cameras around and for my type of outdoors activities it seemed perfect. I took out a couple of times to see how it performs.
Image quality, along with durability is important to me. A lot of my adventure trips involve long hikes and traveling on boats, trains, tuk-tuks, and rickety buses. . Big DSLRs are hard to tote around everywhere. I usually have a P&S with me as my field camera.

Taking the Olympus TG-4 out for a spin!

Macro is cool, but microscope is even better!





I used the timer feature and customized it to 5 seconds. While waiting for my iodine to work I decided to “camel-up” and drank from the stream with a Frontier water filter. Curious as I was, I wanted to see what was in my water source.



What lies beneath?



Cool textures underwater







Camp craft



Mora 2/0 (3” blade)














Tinder poplar bark



Lean-to fire



Heating up the rock fryer



I stole this idea from Patrick Rollins- Arrow shaft used to blow direct oxygen into the coals.



Made split-stick tongs. Often the two pieces don’t meet flush, so by sharpening one end it gives you a way to poke meat and it meets up with the flat side, which can be like a spatula.





After about 30 min, the rock fryer is ready for bacon…



I just fed large pieces in slowly, no need to cut…









Bacon cheddar potatoes!



Cheddar snacks!







Quality seems…ok to me.







 
Looks like the lens clarity of the TG-4 is excellent. Being waterproof, that certainly lens itself to extended hiking scenarios in all kinds of weather. Your photos look great.

I take a point & shoot with me fishing or where I don't intend to do much picture taking during hikes.
 
Man, I always love your posts! Beautiful scenery and beautiful shots, and speaking of beauty, she is MUCH prettier than Jeff and Jay :)

I want t thank you for this post for multiple reasons. It's not just that DSLRs take up a lot of room in crowded environments, set up with lenses to capture anything at a distance with any quality they are also bulky and cumbersome even when you have all the room in the world. I have been looking into replacing my old P&S with a more modern and high tech version and I'm am liking what you are saying and showing of the O T-4, especially for here in the temperate rain forest I live in. The image quality looks great, and I like the idea of a lighter camera that can handle wet environments and produce the high quality images I need for the data base on southern fauna and flora I am putting together. So I think you have just given me reason to buy the Olympus T-4

I also have a question. What area were you in when you ran across the Japanese Wineberries? I'd just like to notate that. We have a lot of them around here too, so I have looked into the history of their migration here. The flavor is a little bland, but not bad. I have also gravitated to smaller knives myself, I think maybe you were an influence there. I have yet to be able to have the faith I would need to carry a Mora, more my issues than their's obviously, but I have moved to lighter hidden tang knives by makers I trust, that's progress right :D

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Nice pics. I have a Canon SX170 IS BUT DAMN I was looking at this Olympus and might try to get one
 
Neat. I'm mildly interested in getting a point and shoot waterproof beater. I'm pretty happy, still, with my g-12 and like it with the otterbox combo and battery life/image quality, but I'm going to be monitoring your awesome point and shoot skills (I remember those pictures you showed me from Shot show a while back) and might pick one up. I keep needing to learn how to actually photograph first tho

J
 
Joezilla said:
Neat. I'm mildly interested in getting a point and shoot waterproof beater. I'm pretty happy, still, with my g-12 and like it with the otterbox combo and battery life/image quality, but I'm going to be monitoring your awesome point and shoot skills (I remember those pictures you showed me from Shot show a while back) and might pick one up. I keep needing to learn how to actually photograph first tho

J
Click to expand...

The G12 is an excellent camera. Didn't you get a DSLR a while back Canon 60D?

The camera we had at shot that time (crazy night) is great as far as image quality, but I went through three of those since 2012. Finally, I decided to leave quality up to the Canon 5D Mark III and casual P&S to a more robust Olympus TG4. It's great for following frogs and water monsters underwater. You'd like it!

-RB
 
Great shots, love the frying plate! Is that fosters can from a Trail Designs hiking stove or did you make it yourself?
I recognize some names that would frequent the ESEE part of BF, even though i have been away from this place for years. Same goes for that RAT patch, been a long time since i've seen those!
 
basb said:
Great shots, love the frying plate! Is that fosters can from a Trail Designs hiking stove or did you make it yourself?
I recognize some names that would frequent the ESEE part of BF, even though i have been away from this place for years. Same goes for that RAT patch, been a long time since i've seen those!
Click to expand...

I made it with a safety can opener and hole puncher. That may be an old patch too.

-RB
 
Like the Pic's you took with your Olympus TG-3 but i think I will get the TG-4 so that I can start taking Pic's again for more
reasons than one.**
 
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