By Jim Lyle
I was able to get my hands on both an Olympus TG-6 camera and PT-059 underwater housing from Optical Ocean Sales fast and at a great price despite a backlog of orders from other
vendors. Of course, with a new toy, I wanted to play with it as soon as possible.The Olympus TG6 is the newest camera in the Oly Tough series. Waterproof without to a depth of 50 feet it’s still advisable to use an underwater housing such as the Olympus PT-059.
Here in southern California, we’ve had crappy conditions for several months this spring - lousy visibility, large swells, and strong winds. Last weekend looked like a window of opportunity so I put my rig together and complete two dives off of Redondo Beach to test out the new camera. Beneath the thermocline the water was dark, but with good
visibility.
So far, with only two dives on the camera, I’m impressed with the results.I used dual Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobes set on TTL and shot both normal and macro subjects. The results were wonderful as you can see in the following images.
One improvement over the older TG5 is the ability to shoot macro AF in Aperture mode. In fact, you can pretty much leave the camera in A mode and never have to touch the mode dial. (There are two custom modes C1 and C2 that can be preset if you so desire.)
I’m off to warm, clear water in a couple of weeks and plan on further testing of this great little camera. I’ll report back when I get home.
